Sunset: 4 (Sunrise) (16 page)

Kari couldn’t draw a full breath as she entered the lobby of the downtown psychiatric hospital, but she could feel the prayers of her family holding her up, giving her strength with each step.

She reached the front desk and introduced herself. “I have an appointment with Angela Manning.”

For a moment, the receptionist looked at her strangely, as if maybe she recognized Kari and knew the connection she had with Angela. But then she managed the slightest very serious smile. “That’s very nice of you, volunteering your time.” She picked up a telephone receiver, pushed a button, and hesitated. “Kari Taylor is here. Can I send her back?” Another pause. “Okay, thanks.

“They’re ready for you.” The receptionist studied Kari again. “Visits like this . . . we find it makes a big difference to these women. Gives them hope that once they get out of here, they’ll connect with people who will help them continue growing in their faith.” She pointed down a hallway. “First door on the left. They’ll bring in Angela in a few minutes.”

“Thank you.” Kari appreciated those words. They were a confirmation, the additional reassurance she needed. She followed the woman’s directions and sat at one end of a sofa anchored beneath a picture window.

Kari wasn’t alone for long before the door opened and suddenly there she was, standing next to a man in a white coat. Her eyes were dead and empty, and she wore a look of bored indifference. Kari studied her, and she couldn’t help but wonder how Tim could’ve chosen the woman standing in the doorway over what he’d had at home with her. She resisted the sudden resentment welling within her.
I’m not sure I can do this, God.

You can do all things through Me, for I will give you strength. . . .

Yes.
Kari exhaled.
That’s true
. Last week she and Ashley had discussed the virtues in the fourth chapter of Philippians, and Kari had read it a number of times in the past week. Along the way, in addition to the wonderful message about God’s peace, Kari had rediscovered the thirteenth verse: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

“Kari?” The man led Angela into the room. “I’m Dr. Montgomery, and this is Angela Manning.”

“Nice to meet you both.” She stood and shook the doctor’s hand. “How long do we have?”

He checked the clock on the wall to her right. “A half hour?” He looked at Angela. “How does that sound?”

She shrugged. “Fine. There’s nothing else to do.” She gave Kari a look that bordered on suspicious.

“Very well.” The doctor smiled, undaunted by her comment.

Kari had submitted an outline of what she planned to talk about to Dr. Montgomery, and then she’d spent fifteen minutes on the phone with the man while he explained that she needed to keep to her outline. “Not every inpatient facility allows this type of lay counseling. We do, however, because we know you’ve undergone training, and because you’re the type of friend she’ll need when she gets out. But it’s important you don’t say anything to contradict the help she’s getting here.”

The only part of his directions that made Kari struggle was the part about being a friend. It was one thing to come to this place and talk to Angela about how she’d seen Jesus work in the lives of hurting women. It was another to be Angela’s friend. For now, Kari was certain God wasn’t calling her into that type of a relationship with Angela, but at the same time maybe Kari could connect the woman to a group that would befriend her.

After the doctor was gone, Kari took her seat again on the end of the sofa and motioned for Angela to sit in the closest chair. As she came closer, Kari smiled at her.
Don’t think about who she is,
she told herself.
This hurting and broken woman was created by God. That’s all that matters.
“I’m Kari.” She shook Angela’s hand. “Thanks for talking with me.”

Angela crossed her legs. “I don’t know why you’d come.”

Kari decided to start at the beginning—how she’d had a troubled marriage and how she hadn’t known what to do next. “I was raised with a strong faith, but not until my life was turned upside down did Jesus Christ become truly real to me.”

Angela leaned back slightly. “What does that mean,
real
to you?”

Kari’s nerves relaxed a little. She could do this. She could share the message of Jesus with this woman no matter how their paths had crossed so many years ago. “See, having faith isn’t just believing in a list of rules. It’s about having a relationship with God.”

A flicker of interest showed in Angela’s eyes. “Explain that.”

And Kari did. For the next several minutes she talked about Jesus, how He wanted a friendship with His people and how that relationship always started with forgiveness. “Because we’re all sinners. All of us have things in our past that separate us from the Lord. Things He wants to forgive us for.”

Angela was silent for a few seconds. Then she shook her head slowly. “He won’t forgive me for my past. I’ve done things that no one could forgive. Things that haunt me.”

In that instant Kari knew that Angela had to be talking about her relationship with Tim. Which was why Kari was here—because in the end, before his violent death, Tim had found forgiveness and healing. Now it was Angela’s turn.

When their meeting was almost finished, Kari pulled a new Bible from her purse and handed it to Angela. “You tried to kill yourself because you didn’t think life was worth living. But Christ died on the cross to give you a vibrant, joyful life.” She nodded to the Bible. “You can read about it there.”

Angela appeared stunned. “I’ve never . . . had a Bible.” When she looked at Kari, some of the indifference from earlier was gone. “Where should I start?”

“The book of John. It’s in the New Testament at the back.” Kari took the Bible again and flipped to the first page of John. “Start here.”

They had maybe another minute, and Kari knew what she was supposed to do next. She set the Bible down on the sofa. “Can I pray with you?”

Angela hesitated, and it felt like maybe she would say no. But then in a voice that was strained from new emotion, she whispered, “Yes . . . thank you.”

Here was the moment Kari had dreaded and feared.
Please, God, be with me.
She took hold of Angela’s hands. The hands that had wrongfully touched Tim and loved Tim, even though he was married. The hands that had welcomed him into her apartment time and again, the hands that had tried to keep him from returning to Kari, even when Tim learned Kari was pregnant. A feeling of repulsion choked Kari and made it impossible for her to pray.

But then she remembered something else. These were also the hands that had tried to commit suicide.

Kari found her voice. “Dear Lord, be with Angela this week. Let her see You in her counseling sessions and in the group therapy. And let her hear Your leading as she reads the book of John. Help her know that no one—” she swallowed the tears building in her—“is beyond Your forgiveness. Because Your sacrifice was enough for all of us. No matter what. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

As they finished praying, Dr. Montgomery stepped into the room. “Well?” His smile was warm and peaceful. “How’d it go?”

“Good.” Kari released Angela’s hands. She was shaking, but she’d done it. She’d come here and met with Angela and even held her hands. “I’ll be back next week if that’s okay.”

Angela nodded, her expression markedly different than it had been thirty minutes ago. Now she looked more like a lost child, baffled at why someone would take the time to help her. She picked up the Bible from the sofa and held it close. “I don’t get this, why you’re here.” Her tone wasn’t exactly kind, but it was warmer than before. “Anyway . . .” She raised the Bible a few inches. “Thank you. And I guess . . . I guess we’ll talk next week.”

As Kari left the facility, everything around her seemed to be bursting with new life. Flowers and patches of grass and new leaves that she’d missed coming in colored the scene in a way that made her want to break into song. God was faithful beyond anything she could imagine! He had brought new life to her, even when her whole world felt ripped apart by Tim’s unfaithfulness and then by his death. But now she had Ryan, Jessie, RJ, and Annie, new life and new hope. Sharing that new life with the very woman responsible for nearly destroying her wasn’t something Kari could do in her own strength, and therein lay the beauty of it. Her visit with Angela today was proof that God was and that He lived and that He was still working today.

And something else. She really could do all things through Christ who gave her strength.

Cody Coleman clung to the rusty bars and peered into the darkness of the hot, dank room. It was late, though Cody wasn’t sure if it was midnight or two in the morning or four. With no windows in the building, they’d lost all sense of time except what their bodies told them. And since the others were sleeping—each locked in his own cage—Cody could only assume it was late.

He couldn’t stand upright in the metal box, and his spine ached because of it. Some moments he wanted out of the cage so badly he could picture losing it. Truly losing it. Banging his head against the ceiling of the metal box and screaming from the insanity of it.

Instead, every time Cody felt like he was going to go crazy from the confinement, he talked to God. He had known about the Lord a number of different ways and times. As a teenager he’d heard the Flanigans talk about God, how Cody couldn’t expect his life to go well if he didn’t first find that all-important faith in Christ. And after his near-death experience from drinking, he’d gone to those alcohol meetings at the Flanigans’ church and found a very real relationship with Jesus.

But the Lord had never been more alive to him than right here, locked in an Iraqi holding room, trapped in a five-by-five metal cage.

“I know You’re here, Jesus.” He whispered the words because there was something about hearing his own voice that helped him stay sane. His mouth was dry, but he couldn’t drink from the water bowl on the dirty floor of the cage. Not yet. He needed to ration the water in case his captors forgot to bring more. He ran his tongue along his gritty gums. “There’s a reason I’m still alive. I know that.” He gripped the bars more tightly. “Please send help. Get us out of here so I can figure out why You spared me.”

Cody pressed his head to the top of the cage, fighting the wild desire to stand tall and straight. Even for a few seconds. His head hurt from the pressure, and finally he sank to the floor. He eyed the water bowl in the corner. Maybe just one small sip. He picked it up, grateful for the cover of darkness so he couldn’t see the dirt and bugs at the bottom of the bowl. He dipped his tongue into the cool liquid and lapped up a few quick drinks. This was what his life had become these past few weeks, nothing more than an animalistic existence. The way his captors wanted it to be.

He pulled up his legs and planted his elbows on his knees. They were bonier than before, and he wondered how much weight he’d lost. Once a day angry Iraqi insurgents burst into the room and flipped the lights on. They would bark things at the men that none of them understood, and they’d shove a tray of something like cold oatmeal into each of their cages. No vegetables or fruit or meat and no utensils. Sometimes they’d poke the butts of their guns into the cages, jabbing at the prisoners for fun.

The first time one of his captors did that to Cody, he grabbed the man’s gun and tried to wrestle it away. But that only attracted the attention of the others, who hurried over and joined in the attack. Before it was over, Cody was on the floor, blood pouring from his head, almost unconscious from the blows.

When the men finally left, Cody had the wherewithal to apply pressure to his bleeding head. After a while, he ripped a piece of material from the inside hem of his pants and applied it to the wound. The bleeding stopped and he fell asleep, his head pounding. When he woke up the next day, his buddies told him they were surprised he’d lived.

“They wanted to kill you, man,” Carl told him. Carl was in the cage opposite Cody’s. “If they come back at you again, fall sooner. Maybe that’ll make ’em stop.”

Sure enough, later that day the Iraqis came back, jabbing their guns at Cody and trying to break open his head wound. Cody fell to the back of his cage, careful to keep his damaged scalp out of reach. Without the game of seeing Cody fight back, the men gave up and turned their attention to the other prisoners. When each of them chose to cower in a corner, the Iraqi men quit fighting, pointing at the Americans and laughing at them.

Cody ran his fingers over the spot where the wound had long since healed. He lowered one hand and felt along the floor for the rock, the small one with the pointy edge. In the cover of darkness, he had used it to scratch lines into the bottom of the cage. One line for every day they’d been in captivity. He ran his fingers over the lines now and counted again. Twenty-two.

He could hardly believe they’d been here so long. Certainly someone had to know where they were and that they needed help. He rested his forehead in his hands. They never should’ve been caught, for that matter. They’d been searching an empty building when the insurgents had burst in through two different back doors. Had they run, they might have all escaped because Cody was pretty sure that only two of the Iraqi men were armed.

But Carl had turned his weapon on the men and fired, killing one of them instantly. And that was that. Thirty men rushed at the Americans, and guns or not, the sheer number of them was overpowering. In a matter of seconds, Cody and his comrades were in handcuffs and being dragged to a series of waiting Jeeps.

The air in the building tonight felt hotter than usual. Hot and dense and thick, like an airless cloud. Cody breathed in, but the sensation left him feeling like he hadn’t breathed at all. Where was the air in this place? Or maybe his captors had done something to fill it with carbon monoxide. Maybe that was how they were going to die, slowly through suffocation.

Cody had the sudden desperate need for even the tiniest bit of fresh oxygen. He sucked in through his nose, but the inhalation brought no relief. This had happened before, right? More than once since they’d been locked up. He had the sure feeling that the hot cement walls were getting closer, closing in on him. Death dug its fingernails into his shoulders and poked at his back and ribs. Was this the end? Was he going to fall unconscious, unable to breathe in the boxy cage? Was there really enough air in the building to keep four men alive?

He opened his mouth and sucked in as deep as he could. Then he did it again and a third time. “Come on, lungs . . . find the air!” he hissed, not wanting to wake the others. “Help me breathe, God!” His heart pounded in his chest, screaming at him that if he didn’t get a full breath soon, it would be too late.

Then he had an idea. He lay down on the metal floor and pushed his legs up the far wall. Only in this position could he stretch his arms over his head and fully extend his spine.

As he did, finally . . . finally a single breath filled his lungs, making him believe once more that he might survive. Lying there like a human letter
L
, his legs stretched up along the far wall, he realized what he’d known before. The breathing thing was all in his head. Yes, it was hot and stuffy and oppressive, but if he stayed calm, if he forced himself not to think about what he was breathing, then he’d be okay. His captain had talked often about mental toughness. Now Cody understood why.

When his heartbeat returned to normal, he sat up again. He felt shaky and exhausted from the effort of breathing, but he wasn’t tired enough to sleep. From the corner of the room he heard the scratchy sound of mice or maybe rats as they scurried along the floor, the way they did every night. Whenever Cody and his buddies were given food, the Iraqi men scraped a few spoonfuls onto the floor in the corner. It was a way of assuring that the mice or rats would stay, irritating the Americans, making them crazy.

Cody blocked out the sound. There was a reason he stayed awake long after the others were asleep. He needed this time so he could think about creating an escape.

Every day after their captors brought in the trays of porridge, they would go to each of the cages one at a time and in broken English ask a few simple questions. “Who are you? What your name? What your rank?”

The reason they had to ask was thanks to Cody. When they were first brought here, they’d been locked in their individual cages and left alone in the dark for nearly a day before the first water and food appeared. During that time, Cody had an idea. The first thing the insurgents would do was take their names and insignia from their uniforms. In that way they could flash the scraps of material in front of news cameras, boasting that they had possession of American prisoners.

But if they destroyed their own stitched names and insignia first, the Iraqis would have nothing. The floor of the room where the cages sat was made up of dirt and small rocks. Cody instructed the others to reach through the bars in their cage and sift around until they found the sharpest rock. Then he told them to use the rock to slice off the part of their uniform that bore their name and insignia. It took more than an hour for the guys to get that far and another two hours using the sharp edges of their rocks to shred the pieces of material. By the time they were done, all that remained of those pieces of their uniforms was a small pile of threads.

When their captors came in next and flipped on the lights, it took them only a few minutes to realize what the men had done. That’s when they began shouting at them and jabbing them with the butts of their guns. After that the questions were a regular part of the visits. “Who are you? What your name? What your rank?”

Over the last few days, an idea had begun to take form. But Cody would need every detail worked out before he could share it with the others, before he could even begin to imagine acting it out. He leaned his head against the back of the metal box. However it happened, he had to get out, had to escape. Whether someone came for them or not.

He had to get out of here and back home so he could see the one person he’d dreamed of seeing every day since he left the United States.

Bailey Flanigan.

Her last letter ran through his mind again. She’d mentioned that she was spending more time with Tim, and she didn’t have any real reason not to. No one else had feelings for her, at least not that she could tell. As soon as he read her words, Cody understood why she had written them. In every letter he had made a point of telling her that she should be dating someone like Tim, someone she would have everything in common with.

So finally she’d taken Cody’s advice, but he detected at least a little bitterness in the tone of her letter. Did she really think he didn’t care for her? that he didn’t hit his bunk every night wishing he were back in Bloomington, where maybe they could’ve become better friends . . . and one day maybe even something more?

Her written words had hurt so much that in his last letter to his mother he’d told her he might just move to the West Coast. Why not? Bailey deserved someone like Tim—Cody truly meant that. Especially with him in Iraq for the next year or so. But he could hardly move back to Bloomington at the end of his tour and watch her head toward a serious relationship, maybe even a marriage, to someone else. If Bailey was falling in love with Tim, then the place for Cody was on the opposite side of the country—as far away from her as he could get.

At least that’s how he’d felt when he wrote the letter. Later he began to doubt himself. If he cared about Bailey, why hadn’t he told her? Maybe she really had turned to Tim only because she no longer thought Cody was interested. Either way, he owed her the truth at least. He had been planning to share his true feelings with her that night when he returned to his bunk. Only he never made it.

A thousand times he’d written the letter anyway, penciling it with his thoughts across the tablet of his heart. So when the time came, he would remember everything he wanted to say, and the letter would simply pour out of him.
Dear Bailey,
he would write.
You have to understand something. I’ve been telling you to see other guys like Tim Reed for one reason only. Because you deserve someone like that and I’m not there. But don’t for a minute think that means I don’t have feelings for you. I do. I have ever since that night after Bryan left when we talked. . . .

There would be more to the letter too. He would tell her of his plans to get out of Iraq alive and come back to Bloomington, not California. His plans to get a college degree and let God bring life once more to their friendship. Plans that included her at every level. He would apologize for not making himself clear, and he would ask her to understand the things he’d said before.

The entire letter was already written.

Cody slid to the floor of the cage, curled up on his side, and closed his eyes. Hunger pangs twisted at his insides, and a few feet away the sound of scurrying scratchy feet echoed in the darkness. He ran his hands over his bony shoulders and elbows. Yes, he had the letter memorized. Now he had to find a way out of here.

Because only then could he finally get the message from his heart to hers.