God's Not Dead 2 (17 page)

IT’S TWO IN THE AFTERNOON
on Sunday, and Amy feels restless. This morning she woke up and got ready to go to church. She found the name of the one Mina had mentioned
 
—Church of the Redeemer. A church Amy has heard of on the north side of Hope Springs. Reverend David Hill is the pastor there. The picture of him on the website makes him look like a nice guy. She swears she knows him from somewhere, but she can’t think where.

There are two services to choose from on Sunday mornings.
Three.
Eight, nine thirty, and eleven. Yet somehow, even though she was dressed in an actual dress and made up and wearing high heels by nine, she still didn’t go. Eventually she put on some jeans and a T-shirt and ate ice cream for lunch.

What’s your fear?
a voice inside asks.
Why so scared?

She knows a part of her is still ashamed and embarrassed at the mockery she piled on the church and the Christian faith over the years.

But isn’t that what grace is all about? Wiping the slate clean?

There’s something more, though. Something deeper.

A text on her phone alarms her. She finds the device on the kitchen table. A glace at the screen reveals it’s her niece texting her.

We’re going to protest outside the courthouse tomorrow.

Don’t you have school?

We’re ditching,
Marlene writes back.

What will your parents say?

They’re letting me.

Amy laughs.

Your father certainly skipped enough classes in his life.

Matt is seven years older than she and was always the black sheep between the two of them. It’s crazy that he now has three kids, including a junior in high school.

I don’t even have a cat.

Do you want to join us?

I’m going to be inside,
Amy types back.
They might not like me carrying a sign into the courtroom.

Can you do that?

No. I’m just kidding.

Amy texts with Marlene for twenty more minutes, talking about the trial and whether Ms. Wesley will win and what things are like at school.

Tell Brooke I’d like to talk with her again,
Amy writes.

I will. She’ll be there tomorrow.

They say bye but then a few moments later Amy gets another text.

BTW
 
—LOVED your blog the other night! Keep it up.

Amy just stares at the words and smiles.
Thank you.

She’s heard many compliments and much praise over the years, but there’s something a little more fulfilling about this coming from Marlene. The girl is smart and sincere and really strong in her faith. Amy respects her and knows her parents have done a good job.

It’s better to hear praise for something positive or questioning than for something that simply bashes and tears down.

It doesn’t take her too long to get back behind the monitor of her laptop and start typing out another blog post.

Writers need to know they have
some
kind of audience. Even if it’s an audience of one.

THE FIRST ODD THING
I see in the parking lot in front of my office building is Roger’s Mercedes. This is one of the many toys he bought after getting that large settlement. Roger is the perfect example of how
not
to spend your money. He’s always complaining of being borderline broke these days, yet he drives a two-door Mercedes sports car that seems to be perpetually clean.

Why is he working on a Sunday evening?

The other odd thing is a car next to his. An SUV, fairly new and in good shape.

The building doors are locked on the weekends. There are only a few other tenants in our one-story office building, and they’re never here on the weekends.

I almost hesitate to get out of my car. This looks sketchy, and knowing Roger, it probably will be sketchy.

Half of the morning was spent on the idea I woke up with. It turns out Sunday morning is pretty much the worst time in the world to get ahold of men who believe in God
 
—men who have studied and made it the number one priority of their lives to talk and teach about God. Thankfully, I somehow managed to connect with two. A plan is in motion. I just hope it will happen.

I was going to spend some time working in my office, but now . . .

I better let him know I’m out here.

I rarely call or text my partner, but I decide to go ahead and send him a message.

Working hard on a Sunday? Love the dedication. Hey
 
—I had to come in for a moment and left my keys at home. Any chance you can open the door?

I wait a few minutes but get no response. Either he’s drafting a long reply or didn’t see my text.

But five minutes later, the front door I’m standing beside swings open. Roger has this strange look on his face, like a rainbow of different emotions. None of them resemble his usual ambivalent mood. I can see surprise and anger and embarrassment, and almost instantly I get what’s happening here.

“What are you doing here?” he asks in the wise-guy accent I’ve never been sure is actually real.

“I work here,” I tell him with a smile.

He’s in the doorway, blocking my entrance. I’m not rushing.

“Doing some extra work on the Jesus case?”

At least he’s read my latest e-mails and knows what’s happening.

“Roger
 
—tell me something. Is there a woman in the office with you?”

That pudgy face of his looks at the parking lot in both directions. “Yeah.”

“I’m guessing it’s not Vicki.”

Vicki is Roger’s second wife, who has been talking about leaving him for the last year.

He brushes back his bird’s nest of curly, receding hair and shakes his head.

“You’re seriously like the guy from the movie
Casino
.”

That salesman, slickster smile of his creeps across his face. “De Niro?”

“No. Joe Pesci.”

The smile goes away just as fast as it came on. “He ends up beaten and buried in a desert somewhere.”

“Well, you better hope that Ms. Not-Vicki in there isn’t a Mrs. Not-Vicki.”

“She’s just a friend I met at the health club.”

He’s wearing dress pants and a button-down shirt that’s tucked in. I look at the nice, round pillow above his belt.

“Health club, huh?” I ask.

He curses, one of his favorite hobbies. “Be quiet. They have great saunas there.”

I shake my head. “I don’t need to come in.”

“No, no, it’s fine. Really.”

“No. Whoever she is
 
—I don’t want to know.”

“I just don’t need any drama with Vicki. Last week, it was rough.”

Roger can get on a roll when talking about his wife. Or his ex-wife. I don’t want to be standing here for another thirty minutes. The good news is I know he doesn’t want that either.

“How’s the case going?” he asks.

You don’t want to know how the case is going.
“It’ll get good tomorrow, when it’s the defense’s turn.”

“Let me know if you need any help with it.”

I nod. “Let me know if guys come after you with baseball bats.”

The irony here is that only one of these statements is a joke, and I’m not the one saying it.

I’m about to leave when I think of the two men I contacted earlier today.

“Oh, and hey,” I say to Roger. “I need a favor.”

There are very few favors I ask Roger for. The fewer, the better, since there’s always potential pitfalls that might come with them.

“Yeah? What do you need?”

“I need to borrow your credit card.”

I’ve done this before so I know he doesn’t mind.

“Sure. What do you need it for?”

“Plane tickets,” I say.

“Going somewhere?”

“No. I have a couple people coming to me.”

Hopefully.

Later that night I find myself thinking of Roger Tagliano and how in the world I ever ended up with him.

Sometimes in life you take leaps of faith. And sometimes when you do, all you manage to do is fall down.
Hard.

There was no dramatic meeting that brought us together. I had moved back home a few months after my mother’s death to take care of her house and to be near my grandmother. Shortly afterward
 
—an hour or a day or a week
 
—I decided I’d stick around. This wasn’t some monumental decision. It simply felt good to be away from California and all the demons that seemed to have
followed me westward. Perhaps my hometown could live up to its name.

I mentioned to an old buddy one night that I was thinking of starting my own law practice, and he mentioned Roger. Said there was this crazy guy who had just won some massive lawsuit while also losing his partner. My buddy told me I should look him up.

“Have a conversation,” he said to me. “What can you lose?”

Well, my buddy has since moved away, but I could write him a nice, long letter about the things I could lose.

How about sanity? And peace of mind? And normalcy?

Yeah. All of the above.

Roger had red sirens flashing from the moment I met him. A part of me, however
 
—that same part that had thrived while in California
 
—believed I could handle him. Roger was a means to an end. He had an office and I could share some of the rent while basically taking advantage of a guy who had a lot of time and money on his hands.

He also had a failing marriage and a wandering eye and a tendency for paranoia and the work ethic of a slug.

But he
y
, I can deal with that.

Deep down, I know this part of me believed I could help him. That the wonderful Tom Endler would be able to resuscitate this poor soul.

Two years later, and we’re both poor souls. I’m hanging on by a thin thread and he’s dangling over a very deep trench.

What a pair.

As it grows late, I find myself trying to prepare for tomorrow. The details for my two guests are arranged and paid for. I’ll be waking up very early. I don’t want to go to sleep, however. I don’t want to wade around in potential dreams. Not because they’re
going to be bad, but because I know I’m going to wake up and find a damaged dog sleeping at the foot of my bed. A bed my dead mother used to sleep in.

That’s the start of a Stephen King novel, buddy.

I found the Bible on a bookshelf in the family room. Originally I put it on the bedside table, but I decided that was a bit too close to where I was sleeping. I retrieved it because I thought it might actually help. Now it just sits on the coffee table untouched.

I don’t need to open it in order to defend someone who believes in it.

I know that the book sitting there isn’t just any ordinary book. I know it’s got the power to change people. If my parents are a valid example, then I have a fifty-fifty chance of turning out good if I actually believe in the stuff inside it. Anything I could ever do to be more like Mom, I’d do. But anything I could ever do to avoid being like Dad, I’d do as well.

So I’m stuck in the middle. Like always. And that book is too far away for me to easily grab.

Mom is gone and Dad is still around.

God, if you’re really there, what’s up with that?

The good guys don’t always win. I know that. That’s why Ms. Wesley is on trial, why I’m defending her, why I’m choosing to fight for her. She shouldn’t be questioned and suspended and put on trial. It’s ridiculous. And that’s the kind of case and person I like to take.

Ridiculous, just like me.

I’ll bet a lot of people called Jesus ridiculous as well.

And here I am, Tom Endler
 
—
that
Tom Endler
 
—stepping up in public and defending him.

I know the stories. My father told enough of them, and the ones
he didn’t tell, my mother did. Two God-fearing, Jesus-believing parents who still ended up getting divorced.

To love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance . . .

But my parents split up, so what exactly did that say about God’s holy ordinance? What did it say about God?

I should go to bed in order to be ready for tomorrow. I’m just a bit irritated for some reason. I’d like to think it’s my parents, but it’s not.

The couch is soft and I know this is the spot my mother probably sat in to watch television. She never sounded lonely anytime I spoke with her. I imagine her sitting here on a night like this, leaning into the glow of the lamp and unfolding that big book with the leather cover. What about it gave her joy or hope? What did those words say and how did she interpret them? Because it’s all about interpretation, right? A woman like Grace can think of them in one way and then Mr. and Mrs. Thawley can think of them in quite another.

But they meant something to Mom.

That should count for a lot, right?

I look at the Bible just sitting there. Come on
 
—I’m not picking it up. I’m not going to read some verse and then suddenly act like David Blaine popped into this room and performed street magic on my soul. The world doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t. There’s no way. There’s just no way.

My eyes move to the set of pictures on the shelf on the wall. I look at the one on the far left with my young mother standing beside my sister and me. Smiling. So young. With life stretched so far ahead of her. Looking like this was the way life should be. Full of hope and full of a family with fortunes just ahead.

She wasn’t crazy and she didn’t see David Blaine or David Copperfield.

Mom believed. Oh, did she believe.

As I stand up and start shutting off the lights, I recognize this thing that’s hovering over me. It’s not easy to admit and it doesn’t really make sense.

It’s envy. Envy for something someone once had. Someone who’s no longer even around.

I picture Grace, my client, the teacher on trial, a woman my mother would have been proud to see me represent. Maybe I’ll start envying her, too.