When You Believe Page 15

  The sounds of the dogs faded further to her left. The hawthorn and the jack oak brambles began to tug like an anxious child at her feet.

  All these things people expect of me. I’m so tired of disappointing everybody.

  She walked without knowing where she was going. She walked without hearing a word. At last, out of breath, she stopped and hung her head, supporting herself against a shagbark trunk. Oh, Lord. I’m so tired of trying to find you.

  For a moment, she glanced behind her, thinking she should give up and go back. She wanted to run back to everyone and say, no no no, but just then she caught a faint scent of something sweet, oranges, tangy and fresh, like springtime instead of fall. When she turned toward the depths of the trees, a shadow flitted through them.

  “Hello?” Of course, she thought, it could have been a bird. “Hey?” She tried to think of the child’s name. “Are you here?” Then she remembered it. “Jamie?” Perhaps she should have brought the little girl’s mother with her. Anyone that young could be afraid, hearing a stranger calling her name.

  You’re looking past me, Lydia. Did you know that?

  “Jamie? Can you hear me?”

  Nothing.

  Then Lydia heard the breeze behind her before she felt it, watched it tumble toward her through the crowns of the sycamores. Leaves dislodged and began to sift down around her shoulders. And, as she stepped through them, it seemed as if they almost had a voice.

  How I delight in your pursuit of me. But you’re looking at me the human way, Lyddie, as if you have to convince me to care, as if you have to struggle to make me hear you.

  She moved on, climbing over a rotten stump, coming into a clearing. “Which direction?” She didn’t even realize she was asking it out loud. “Which one?”

  I chose you before the foundation of the earth. I planned great and marvelous works for you to do. My son died so that I might hear your beloved whisper, that you might follow me along every trail, that you might go where I am.

  It was such an odd feeling, this sensation that she must be following something, only she didn’t know what it could be. A child wouldn’t move this quickly.

  To her right came the familiar lapping sounds of water but, as she peered through the limbs, she saw only sky. She had left the Brownbranch, the steel, cold mirror, a long way below. It amazed her how such a gentle rippling sound could carry this far uphill.

  Lydia went another way, hedging toward the north, ducking her head so as not to bump it on low-lying branches. Here she found a high ridge where the ground leveled off. The undergrowth opened a little; it wasn’t as thick here. “Jamie?”

  She should have brought a radio or something. She’d been crazy to run off so fast and not figure out a way to communicate with them. Crazy. They’d probably already found the child, Jamie, or whatever-her-name-was anyway; everybody down there was probably celebrating and laughing, because Lydia Porter was still thrashing around up there, and she had no way to know.

  Why should she be heading up a rise like this, looking for a child that could barely walk?

  What sort of mother would bring a child camping, and leave it alone while she took a nap?

  What sort of heavenly Father would leave anyone lost when they needed the most to find Him?

  Oh Father . . .

  It wasn’t any use. She couldn’t do this.

  She sat down on a rock and waited. And waited. Waited more. Her bottom grew sore, as the sun ducked behind a western hill.

  That you might follow me… That you might go where I am . . .

  Lydia stood, dusted off the seat of her pants. Unwilling to stop trying, she made broader and broader circles, calling, waiting, searching, listening. But nothing. She’d try a different place. No sense being up here anymore. She started back down and, as she did, she began to hear the lake again, and the dogs, and the sounds of people calling for a child. Another sad story, she thought. Another broken, awful, unexplainable thing happening in the world.

  That’s when her foot kicked something hidden beneath the leaves. She bent to pick it up. It was a toddler’s toy, a plastic face with a sleeping cap and lime-green segments, the thing that helped a child when it was afraid of the dark. A Glo-Worm.

  She squeezed the toy’s body and the face lit brightly in the waning forest light. It hadn’t been here long enough to even get soiled. The battery still burned fresh.

  Lydia held the thing up and questioned the merry eyes, the broad, silly grin. “What’s happened here, you,” she demanded of Glo-Worm. “Because I know you could tell me.” She swung in a broad circle, looking again. She had just decided to cry out the girl’s name when something stopped her.

  Clarity.Peace. Her instincts did not just suggest she do this thing; they demanded it. Lydia surveyed the trees around her, chose a stout, loose-limbed hickory. She tied her Nikes tighter and began to climb.

  After she reached a good height she did not have to search long. There, five paces off to her left, she glimpsed a flash of small, red pants. Jamie had curled herself up in the rootwell of a sycamore.

  For one brief, spellbinding moment, Lydia was terrified that the child had fallen or gotten injured. But she held her own breath for three beats, four, and listened.

  Yes, sound does travel uphill.

  Lydia heard the melodic rhythm of a baby’s peaceful breathing, resting in sleep, unafraid.

  THERE WOULD BE, of course, another story in the newspaper.

  It had been close to 6:00 P.M. when she awakened the little girl and kept her smiling all the way to the campground with the Glo-Worm. After that, all Lydia had wanted to do was get home.

  Now she folded open the lid to the mailbox the way she did every night when she arrived, the way she did on any ordinary evening, although this day did not feel like anything ordinary at all.

  She sifted through the bills and the flyers, separating the personal envelopes from junk mail and bank statements. And, so odd. Along with everything else, today seemed to be a day of letters. She found, when she thumbed through the envelopes, that she’d gotten two of them.

  Lichen Bridge, CT October 6

  Our Dearest Lydia,

  Haven’t heard from you in so long and your dad and I have been wondering what’s been going on in your life! Was so glad to get the e-mail about you buying your plane tickets and everything being set for Christmas. You should see Dad, already being excited about that. It isn’t even Thanksgiving yet, and he comes in yesterday with a clock he bought at Wal-Mart that plays Christmas carols every hour. Like those birds that chirp every hour, only this one plays songs. $24.99 for that thing, when he wouldn’t buy a fishing license from Cy last time because the out-of-state day fee was too much. I get to hear “Joy to the World” every day at three in the afternoon, and at three in the morning, although it has a sensor on it and, when there isn’t any light, it plays much softer. Maybe it will run out of batteries?!

  So now you know how your father feels about you coming home. T

  Wanted to write and let you know about an odd thing that happened the other day. A woman came to our door and said she knows you. Or that she knows of you, and she’d like to be in touch. I gave her your address before your father said it might not be the right thing to do. I hope I wasn’t wrong?! Anyway, you may hear from her soon. She said she’d be ‘A Blast From Your Past.’ I think it’s got something to do with homecoming at your own high school. Maybe she’s somebody you knew there? If it’s a problem I gave her your address, then it’s my fault.

  Until soon. I’m going to a class to learn how to e-mail. Right now, though, it’s faster to just write by hand.

  Anything interesting happening with your students? You are a wonderful girl, sweetheart, and I know you are helping everybody you meet. We have always been so proud of you.

  We are both excited and intrigued about getting to meet your ‘friend.’ I think that’s why your father bought that clock, too. He’s wondering if you might be bringing home a man?! (Although how Chri
stmas carols in the night would help with that situation, I don’t know.) You know I would never write and ask you these things! Marla Tompkins did stop me the other day at Pendergrass to see if I had any grandchildren?! Of course she had pictures of hers. Why do people ask these nosy questions? One of her grandchildren has very big ears but, you will be proud, I did not say a word about that, either.

  With so much love,

  Mother

  Lydia couldn’t help it. Her heart went heavy again.

  Things are so different than I had thought they would be. I had so many of my own plans.

  She opened the second letter.

  Lichen Bridge, CT October 7

  Dear Miss Porter:

  This may seem like an odd letter to you but I feel it is something I ought to do. I stopped by your parents’ house the other day and your mother gave me your address. I hope you don’t mind my getting in touch.

  My ex-husband, Clive Buckholtz, passed away several months ago and I have been asked to sort through his personal affects for the family. I don’t know if you will remember Clive or not. He was known as Mr. Buckholtz and taught Junior English at your school in Lichen Bridge. In with some of his more important papers and household ledgers, he kept an envelope with your name on it.

  I hope you don’t mind that I opened the envelope and looked inside. The only thing in the envelope was a test from his class. It is an essay exam with in-depth questions about Beowulf. On this test you scored a moderate grade, a mid-B.

  He left a note on top of the envelope that, should anything ever happen to him, I was to find you and make sure you had this paper. Even his note, I’m afraid, was written a long time ago. I haven’t seen Clive in years. He had not taught in the public schools since his retirement in 1991. I am staying at a rental cottage while in Lichen Bridge to finish sorting through these things. Unfortunately, I do not have a phone. The rental office has one, but that is three miles up the road! If this old test holds any significance to you, you may contact me at the return address below and I will send it to you posthaste. I did not want to mail it out unless I was certain I had the correct Miss Lydia Porter. But, since I’ve talked to your mother, I do think it’s you.

  Respectfully,

  Jolena Criggin (Formerly Buckholtz)

  234 Plumb Hill Road

  Straddle Ridge Rental Cottages

  Lydia laid this in her lap without refolding it. She stared at it a long time. She realized that she needed to breathe.

  . . . like a tree planted by the water . . .

  It’s what we do with the unchangeable things that matters. Isn’t that exactly what she’d said to Cassie Meade?

  Beloved, don’t you see where I’ve been leading you?

  Well.

  Well.

  Lydia folded the letter and placed it back inside its envelope. She dialed the Olins’ telephone number. Once connected, she asked Tamara for permission to invite Shelby to travel along with her.

  Oh, Lord. If you’d show me the difference between believing and knowing.

  With all the help that she’d offered Shelby, maybe she hadn’t yet offered anything of her heart at all.

  If you’re close to me, God.

  If this is what you want from me . . .

  The heavenly Father had just gotten more unpredictable than ever.

  WEEKLY VISITATION at the St. Clair County Jail began at seven Monday night. It lasted for two hours. Lydia had struggled across the parking lot at Winn-Dixie, trying to make it there on time, with the wind so strong it had blown all the loose shopping carts backward. Once she made it to Osceola, she pulled in to the jail lot off Chestnut Street, the Buick headlights catching pinstripes of rain, and parked in the designated visitor space. She covered her head with the only thing available in her front seat, a college admittance application from Bowling Green, and climbed out.

  A cool rain had been drizzling all afternoon again, the typical weather pattern for autumn. The grounds back at the high school looked more like a pig-wrestling arena than a place to play soccer.

  Lydia tried to yank open the jail door, but it wouldn’t budge. A second or two ticked by before she realized she needed to press a bell and signal her presence. Behind a window inside, a uniformed lieutenant glanced up, checked her out.

  She must have passed inspection. The door buzzed and a latch clicked open. It unnerved her when she stepped inside the crowded waiting room.

  The guard waited for her behind a glass partition that must have been at least five inches thick. “It clearing up out there?” he asked, as if visiting somebody in the lock-up was something you did every day.

  “Clear up to our eyeballs.” Of course, she had to say that. She was used to bantering with teenagers.

  He shoved a clipboard through a small furrow. A pencil dangled from the clipboard with a length of soiled, ancient string. “Need to fill this out. Your name. His name. Time signed in. Relationship to inmate.”

  Lydia Porter, she scribbled. Charlie Stains.7:46 p.m. Friend.

  “Thanks,” he said, looking it over. “It’ll be twenty minutes or so. There’s not room for him at the window right now. Take any seat.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I mean, don’t take it. They might lock you up for stealing. Wouldn’t want to spend any time in the slammer. Ha ha ha.”

  In the end, Lydia waited much longer than twenty minutes. She waited while a mother with young children went in, then a squatty man who talked with his hands. She stopped thinking of it as waiting after a while. Seeing Charlie like this wasn’t the sort of thing she knew how to wait for. She was just there, taking the next punch anybody wanted to throw at her. When at last the warden stepped out and gestured for her, it almost felt like a surprise.

  “You got fifteen minutes in there, Miss Porter. They’re bringing him in.”

  Inside a cubicle that wasn’t much larger than a closet, three chairs sat like stools facing a soda fountain. With two of them already taken, visitors sat elbow to elbow. Lydia wedged her way in beside them, scooting the third seat forward like she was scooting up to the supper table.

  Through this glass panel, she faced an empty chair.

  Charlie rounded the corner with wardens at his elbows and wrists wrapped in chains. He saw her and his entire body went rigid. A hollow knot appeared at the juncture of his jaw.

  She couldn’t help flinching when she saw him. The outfit was dreadful. An orange jumpsuit with ST. CLAIR COUNTY JAIL emblazoned over his left pectoral.

  No buttons, only snaps. And short sleeves. Charlie never wore short sleeves. Sleeveless, maybe, or torn-away T-shirts when he worked on the dock in the sun. But never anything like this.

  She focused on the jumpsuit to keep from focusing on his face.

  The wardens unlocked his handcuffs and stood guard over him. He folded doggedly into the chair. Two phones hung on the wall between them, one on his side, one on hers. She picked up the receiver. He didn’t.

  They stared at each other for a good four minutes. When he finally got on line with her, there they sat. She listened to him breathe. Even that sounded tinny and unreal, as if Charlie was breathing somewhere on the other side of the earth.

  “You’re getting out tomorrow?” she whispered.

  No answer.

  “If they determine probable cause tomorrow, then they’ll set bail?”

  His eyes, his breathing, pinned her. She felt herself teetering but gritted her teeth, forced her eyes to stay dry, her voice to stay steady.

  “Is there anything you need me to—?”

  He jumped on that with copperhead speed. “There was only one thing I needed from you.” With his arm pressed against the counter, his elbow bearing all his weight. “I needed you to believe me.”

  And then, the breathing again.

  Outside in the waiting room, a toddler shrieked. A chair scuffed the floor when the warden announced “Time’s up” for someone else down the row. Rain drummed on the roof, a distant, mysterious sound. Mor
e melancholy and miraculous, that sound, because some people in this place hadn’t seen rain for a very long time.

  As minutes lumbered past, he sat with his forehead braced in his palm. She thought she should say something, but helplessness kept her still. When he moved at last, he lifted his entire face through the grip of his fingers. “Look, Lydia,” he said as he stretched out his chin. And something subtle had changed in his voice. “This is more difficult than I thought it would be.”

  “Yes.” It was all she could say.

  Ridiculous, after all that waiting and breathing, that each of them jumped in with something at the same moment to say.

  “I told them I would—” Charlie muttered.

  “I came to tell you—” Lydia rushed.

  “I hired Tuck Herrington as a lawyer.”

  “I think you should know that I’m going away.”

  Lydia waited for his response to that, to her going away.

  So much in her heart right now that she couldn’t explain.

  Using this odd letter to put distance between herself and Shadrach, to put distance between herself and Charlie.

  Running toward something that she could never escape. And taking Shelby with her.

  At the St. Clair County Jail, the second hand on the industrial clock moved with terse, short jerks.

  “Harrington and I were in Scouts together. I told him I would take a lie-detector test. But he won’t let me do it.”

  “I’m leaving early in the morning, Charlie. I wanted you to know that’s why I won’t be in the courtroom when they set your bail and give you the arraignment date. If I was going to be here, I would be at the courthouse.”

  She stopped rambling and stared at him as if she’d just heard him for the first time. “I don’t understand.” And her heart dared to surge. A lie-detector test? How simple was that?

  “Lie-detector results aren’t admissible in court. But if I take it and something goes wrong and I don’t pass, Harrington thinks it’ll give the prosecutors more to work with.” It had taken him this long to hear her, too. “Where are you going?”