God's Not Dead 2 (9 page)

I FIND GRACE’S HOUSE
just off one of the side streets ten minutes from the center of Hope Springs. Towering maple trees block out the fading light in the sky as I get out of my car and make sure Google Maps on my phone tells me this is the right place. I’m the king of GPS leading me into the middle of the country when I’m supposed to go to town hall.

I walk down a sidewalk a few steps before I hear a soft voice calling my name.

“Up here.”

There are stairs leading to a wooden porch lit by two lights, one on each side of the front door. I see the outline of Grace watching me climb up them.

“You found it,” she says.

“Yes, after the first two families I visited. A bit awkward to go into their houses, but finally . . . I’m here.”

I notice the blonde hair gracing her neck above her shoulders, but I can’t see her full expression. I just know she’s giving me one of those familiar
Shut up already, Tom
looks.

“Are you always this sarcastic?”

“It’s a cover for my overwhelming distrust of everyone.”

Grace looks up at me and I see the outline of her face. “So you distrust me?”

“Of course not. But I’m a lawyer. I distrust everyone. And everyone distrusts me.”

“Don’t tell any of that to my grandfather, okay?”

I pause for a moment. “Okay. But why would I be talking to your grandfather?”

“’Cause I live with him.”

Moments later I step inside the Victorian house and meet Walter Wesley. The frail figure greets me the moment I walk through the door.

“So you’re the genius who’s gonna save my granddaughter?”

His handshake feels like the grip of one of those soldiers portrayed in
Band of Brothers
.

Where’s the “genius” coming from?

“I’m gonna do everything I can,” I tell the man.

“Tom, this is my grandfather, Walter,” Amy says with humor on her face. “I’ve obviously told him about you.”

“Is ‘everything you can’ going to be enough?” Walter asks me.

Great question, pops.
“I certainly hope so.”

“You sure don’t sound very confident,” he says.

I love crusty old men who tell me in their tones that one day if I’m lucky I’ll turn out like them.

“I owe it to your granddaughter
not
to be overconfident.”

“You’re the lawyer she’s been talking about, right?” he asks me.

“Absolutely. I’m a mixture of
The Firm
and
A Few Good Men
and
 
—”

“If you say
Mission: Impossible
, I’m going to tell Grace to fire you for being infatuated with a short man in Hollywood.”

I laugh. “No, sir. Just joking around a bit.”

“He likes to do that, Grandpa. Just like someone else I know.”

Walter gets this look that’s completely classic. He’s suddenly a college buddy of mine after both of us have been busted.

“I’m getting the sense you don’t want to mess with her,” I tell Walter.

“Absolutely not,” he says, then turns to Grace. “I like him.”

As he disappears into the kitchen, I give her a look and a smile.

“First-time luck,” she says as I follow her into the living room.

Everything from the thick burgundy comforter draped over the arm of the sofa to the smell of apple pie makes this place feel like a true home. I spot a cat sneaking out of the room, then see a shelf full of family pictures that would take half an hour to study individually.

“Did you have dinner? We just finished a few minutes ago.”

“Yes, but thank you,” I say.

Not that three microwaved sausage biscuits can really be considered a meal.

Grace gets me to at least let her serve me some coffee and a piece of that fresh pie I was hoping to try.

It’s been a few days since the meeting with the superintendent and everybody else. I’ve spoken with Grace several times and we’ve gone back and forth over e-mail.

“This is really good,” I tell her after wolfing down the large slice of pie.

“I can tell.”

Grace is looking at my cleaned-off plate in amusement.

“Sorry. That’s why I don’t accept dinner invitations. Living alone has turned me into a Neanderthal.”

“Gramps loves fresh apple pie,” Grace says. “I usually am trying to get him to eat healthy
 
—we have to watch his cholesterol
 
—but every now and then I spoil him.”

I nod and tap my belly. “So does part of my retainer include fresh pie every time we meet?”

“Maybe that’s a good plan.”

I sit in the armchair, facing her on the couch. The coffee cup I take a sip from has the logo of a university on it.

“Did you attend Hadleigh?”

Grace nods, her pleasant smile stuck to her like the aroma of the pie.

“How about you?” she asks.

“You mean you didn’t go to the Thomas Endler website before deciding on me?”

“Actually, yes
 
—I tried,” she matches with her own sarcasm. “But they said the site hadn’t been updated for several years.”

If only she knew.

“I went to one of those big-name schools you brag about years after graduating.”

“I’ll let you brag,” she says. “At least once tonight.”

“Stanford.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“The weather was sure nice. So were the girls.”

She takes the weather cue and talks about visiting California a few years ago. Probably to get away from my mention of California girls and any highlight of the male-female thing happening here. Grace seems to have one of those rare traits in today’s world: modesty.

Last thing I need to do is start talking about Sienna.

“Did you always want to be a teacher?” I ask her.

“I did. Initially I thought I’d be a grade school teacher.”

“That was my first thought, to be honest. That you look like you might teach kindergarten.”

“You’re not the first person who’s told me that. Which is funny because it makes me think,
What exactly constitutes the look of a kindergarten teacher
?
”

I shrug. “Well, it’s probably not the same look as an MMA fighter. But you probably don’t even know what that stands for?”

“Mixed martial arts, thank you very much. And no, I don’t think I have the looks for that.”

“At least people aren’t saying you resemble a librarian.”

“No, though I could be one if I’m being honest. I grew up loving to read. That’s what prompted me to want to learn more. I couldn’t read enough when I was younger. I was so curious. Especially about history. I went through different phases in my life of reading about history. Some people remember their childhood through places they lived or through photos, but I remember mine through American wars.”

I laugh and shift in the comfortable armchair. “That sounds like a recipe for nightmares.”

“No, seriously
 
—junior high was all about the Civil War. My freshman year I got into the Revolutionary War. Then the world wars. Senior year of high school I remember studying the Vietnam War and even writing a paper on it. Other girls my age were going to see
The Devil Wears Prada
while I was renting
The Killing Fields
.”

“So you’ve had a streak of rebellion in you all your life.”

“Yes, though rebellion isn’t the reason you’re here.”

I nod and agree with her. “And you never thought of moving away from Hope Springs?” I ask.

“Not since my grandmother passed away and I moved in with my grandfather.”

“Do your parents live in the area?”

“Yes. But we don’t actually see them much, to be honest.” She pauses for a moment, then glances at my cup. “Would you like some more coffee?”

I nod, even though I really don’t want a refill. She scoops up the mug and goes into the kitchen.

There’s a lot more to Grace and her parents, and I assume I’ll learn more the longer I’m around her. It’s never good to hesitate when cross-examining someone in the courtroom, but in real life it’s sometimes better to hold on and wait.

Truth has a way of coming out when people have learned to trust you.

“I still can’t believe that it’s actually Brooke’s parents who are listed as the ones suing me.
Thawley v. Wesley
.” Grace looks a bit pale after we’ve spent the last hour going over all the filings and briefs.

“Obviously they don’t share their daughter’s curiosity about spiritual matters.”

“Do you know they lost their son this past year?” she asks.

“Yes. I read about that.”

“I don’t know if this is part of their
 
—their grief perhaps? I know it’s been hard for them. Brooke said they had moved on, but I’m sure you don’t just move on when your son dies in an auto accident. How could you?”

“There are some things parents do that you won’t ever figure out,” I say.

I’ve got thirty-five years of experience with that.

“But still
 
—I don’t understand such anger over something like this. They’re not only asking that I be fired but that I lose my teaching certificate. That means I’ll never work as a teacher again. Anywhere.”

The sinking feeling Grace has is a familiar weight I’ve carried around for several years now. “You’re right.”

I don’t want to heap coals on this fire, but I have to make sure she understands what we’re dealing with.

“You’ll have to also pay attorneys’ fees for the plaintiff, which is not going to be inexpensive.”

“It’s not like I have many assets. This house and everything in it belongs to my grandfather.”

“They can take everything you have,” I tell her.

She tosses the papers on the coffee table. “I just don’t get it.
Why?
Why are they doing this?”

“To make an example of you. Look
 
—I know. It’s ridiculous, right? But these people
 
—I’ve run into a few of them in meetings. They’re vicious. Your beliefs are like a disease whose time has come and gone. Sorta like smallpox.”

Grace smooths out the fold in her skirt, then looks over at the photos displayed on the shelves. “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this sort of thing,” she says.

“Really? In your teaching career?”

“No. With my spiritual walk. Or . . . in regard to my faith. The word
spiritual
can mean a little bit of anything these days.”

I’m not following her. “How do you mean you’ve seen this sort of thing?”

“There’s a reason I’m living here and not with my parents. A reason you haven’t seen my mother or father tonight. It’s because they’re not a part of my life anymore. Nor my grandfather’s.”

“Why?” I ask.

Her eyes search for something that’s surely not going to be found in this living room. She’s wondering what exactly to tell me, something I can understand.

“My parents
 
—my father, in particular
 
—wasn’t a big fan when my grandfather found Jesus. Gramps called it his Damascus Road experience. I think they thought he was crazy, to be honest. I was fourteen and believed my parents. I didn’t know the relationship my father had with his father. So when I told them years later that I had discovered what Gramps had
 
—that God had finally yanked me off the road I was on
 
—they tried to convince me that I was being foolish. They even blamed both my grandparents. It became ugly and they simply couldn’t deal with it. We see them from time to time
 
—they haven’t completely cut the cord
 
—but they’re pretty bitter.”

I’m curious how she made this discovery
 
—how God supposedly “yanked” her off the road she was on. But I know it will come out just like her revelations about her parents. I won’t need to ask. It will be natural and normal.

“There was one time after an argument,” Grace says. “My father and grandfather argued at a dinner and my father stormed off. My mother, like always, came to his defense, and I swear I’ve never seen her more angry in my life. It was scary. And like you said about this lawsuit and these people, the anger on my mother’s face was just nuts. It was almost . . . I know I might sound crazy saying this.”

“What?”

“Demonic?”

I laugh, not because I don’t believe her but because of course she’s not crazy.

“You should’ve seen Judge Nettles, who I used to work for,” I say. “Talk about demonic. It was like the girl from
The Exorcist
had grown up and become a man and now was a judge for the Ninth Circuit.”

“The Ninth Circuit?” Grace asks.

“An inflated and supposedly important group of courts that mostly exist to hear appeals. The circuit courts are right below the Supreme Court. I now call it the Ninth Circuit of Hell.”

This doesn’t make her laugh like I thought it would.

For a few moments, we talk about the schedule and the upcoming order of events. What I plan to do next, what I still need from her, suggestions on what she can do before showing up in court, whether I’ll file any motions before the trial. She’s listening but she’s also somewhere else, the anxiety rising up on her face like water over a drowning soul.

“Can I ask you a question, Tom? And can you be completely honest?”

I nod. “Of course. Anything.”

“How do we stop them?”

There’s only one answer I can give her.

“We win.”

Crossing the Threshold

A POST FOR
WAITING FOR GODOT

by Amy Ryan

Optimistic people make me nervous. They always have, and it seems like they always will.

I used to believe it was because their sense of naiveté, crossed with their ignorance, allowed them to carry a smile like someone sniffing gas or glue or something even worse. I would take this belief and then wrap words around it like gloves around a boxer’s hands. Now I realize the words were more like those horrible little appetizers served at Super Bowl parties. The cocktail franks wrapped in bacon. They might taste yummy going down, but there’s nothing good for you in digesting them.

Yes, I just compared my former blog to bacon-wrapped Lit’l Smokies.

I’ve also come to realize something else. Something even less attractive than digesting mystery meat.

My dislike and distrust of enthusiastic and idealistic people only comes from the sense of despair and disillusion I’ve always carried around with me. These haven’t been just simple attitudes I’ve picked up in twenty-seven years of living. They’re more like my right and left hands, the two things that have spent so much time typing and searching and clicking on the computer.

Now, however, I find myself fascinated with optimism. I want to learn about it just like I want to figure out my faith. Could they possibly be tied together, as closely related as a right and left hand? Or are they more like a head and a heart? Do you need one in order to move or break the other?

The heart is the place where faith is found, while the head figures out how to process the joy that comes from it. So if I have faith, I should have optimism and joy. Right?

So then why do I still see the gray on days of sky-blue ceilings? How come I spot the cracks on yellow-brick roads?

Does happiness come the longer you’re on this road of faith? Or is it more like a symptom of how truly you believe?

I’ve recently discovered a woman who is a testament to an optimistic soul. She seems to love her job as a teacher and her role in shaping students’ lives. She appears to view the tough parts of teaching history to high schoolers as a blessing and an opportunity.

The more I learn about this teacher, the more intrigued I become. Intrigue, of course, is crucial for any writer, especially a journalist or a blogger. You have to be interested enough to observe and ask questions and observe more and then give the results.

I’ve embarked on a journey toward discovering what this thing called faith means, and I’m not going to be taking this journey by myself. I’ll be heading down this road with others. In particular, at least for a while, I’ll be walking alongside this woman. Or at least trailing shortly behind her.

What is faith, and how is it shown in one’s life?

What if that faith suddenly finds someone at a crossroads?

And what if that faith suddenly finds itself in the crosshairs of an enemy who doesn’t want to have anything to do with it?

What will happen to this faith and to the soul who holds it?