Times and Seasons (10 page)

“But there’s a mission field right here in your own neighborhood,” Cathy said. “You don’t have to go to Nicaragua to find people who need help. All this time you had a criminal living right next door and you didn’t even know it.”

“Don’t say that,” Sylvia scolded. “Honey, don’t ever say that about your son again. You need to learn to bless Mark, not curse him. The words that come out of your mouth, even if he doesn’t hear them, are more powerful than you think.”

Cathy wondered if there was a cave nearby she could crawl into for the next year. “Maybe my words are exactly what got him to this point,” she said. “Maybe without even knowing it, I’ve cursed his entire life.”

“There you go again,” Sylvia said, “blaming yourself. You’ve got to stop that. All you can do is say that from this moment on things will be different.”

“But how?” Cathy asked. “How do I make them different? Sylvia, you don’t know how many times I’ve gotten on my knees and prayed and asked God to make me a better mother, to make me stop finding reasons not to teach them the Bible, to stop letting the television dictate our evenings. I’ve prayed that God will empower me to do that and make me want to when I’m lazy. But I’m still me. I still say things I wish I hadn’t said. And I still do things wrong. How do I change? How do I make myself the kind of parent that would raise godly children? None of this is working for me.”

“Do you remember the story Jesus told about the vine and the branches?”

Cathy was thankful that was one part of the Bible she was familiar with.

“Jesus said that we should abide in him and that through him we could bear fruit. Do you understand what that means, Cathy?”

“I think I do,” she said. “It means that we get our power from God.”

“Don’t you know that a branch that’s not attached to the vine is going to die? The leaves wither, and it doesn’t bear anything. There’s no fruit.”

“So you think I’ve fallen off the vine?” Cathy asked.

“No,” Sylvia said, patting her knee. “I think you’re still on the vine. I just don’t think you’re using the vine for your power. You see, in a vine all the branches get all their energy and all their life from that vine. Every piece of fruit, every leaf on the branch, comes from that vine. The branch can’t do it alone. There’s no way. If it falls on the ground it just withers up and dies. That’s what Jesus was trying to tell us. All you have to do is abide in him. You have to soak up the life that he gives you. You have to soak up the power. You have to use it.”

“And how do you do that?” Cathy asked. “By reading your Bible every day?”

“Not just reading it,” Brenda said. “By soaking it up. Studying it. Meditating on it, thinking about it, turning it over in your mind, living with it, breathing it.”

“That takes a lot of effort and a lot of time,” Tory said. “It’s not so easy when there are kids running through the house demanding your time and attention.”

Cathy allied herself with Tory. “Or when you’ve got a clinic to run and people who need things done, when you’re trying to keep a fiancé happy. Life just wears me out. I’d love to spend all day every day reading the Bible, but that’s just not realistic. I really do want to feel that power and authority that comes from Jesus. But I’m new at this, and I’m slow growing. I guess I should be a lot further along by now, but I’m not.” She shoved her hand through her hair. “I guess God’s pretty disgusted with me.”

“He’s not disgusted,” Sylvia said. “He’ll feed you milk as long as you need it. But eventually you’ve got to take solid food.”

“If I’d taken it sooner,” Cathy said, “then maybe Mark wouldn’t be in this position.”

“And maybe he would,” Brenda said. “Do you believe that God is a good and loving parent?”

“Yeah,” Cathy said. “And a wise one, too. He always knows what’s best. When I just parent in fits and starts, trying and failing and trying again, God gets it right.”

“You have to trust him with Mark,” Sylvia said. “He’s coming of age, Cathy. He’s at the point where there’s very little that his mother can tell him. God’s got to get his attention. And he’s in a place right now where he can.”

“How can you say that?” Cathy asked. “He’s in there with criminals and thieves and drug addicts!”

“Maybe he needs to look around and see what he could turn out to be. Or maybe God has just strategically positioned him there for a very important reason. Maybe he’s going to use him.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Just wait,” Sylvia said. “Just wait and see what God can do. I can’t promise that everything will turn out exactly the way you want, but I can promise that you’ll be amazed at the way God works through this.”

Cathy stared off into space for a moment, trying to picture it, but she failed. Finally, she reached out to hug her friend. “I’m going to miss you,” Cathy whispered.

“And I miss you already,” Sylvia said. She turned back to Brenda and Tory, and they all got up and hugged.

When they separated, Sylvia smeared her tears across her face. “I wish I could come back for the wedding.”

“Well, maybe you can,” Cathy said. “We postponed it again. Indefinitely.”

“No!” Tory cried. “Cathy, you can’t.”

“It’s just not a good time,” Cathy said. “But it’s okay. We’re still in love. I’m still wearing the ring. And according to him, he’s still going to act like a man about to get married.”

The boarding call piped across the terminal, and Sylvia framed Cathy’s face. “Don’t you throw everything away because one bad thing happened,” she said. “Steve’s a good man. An answer to prayer.”

“I know,” she said. “I won’t forget that.”

Sylvia picked up her bag. “And if you need me…any of you…I’m just down the continent.”

They laughed through their tears and hugged again, none of them in a hurry to let go.

That night, unable to sleep, Cathy got out of her bed and knelt down beside it. She put her elbows on the mattress and folded her hands in front of her face.

“Lord,” she whispered, “I know I don’t even have a clue what it means to abide in you. I can say I’m doing it—but when I try to read the Bible…the words just rattle around in my brain, and ten minutes later I forget what I read.” She hated admitting that. “Change me, Lord. I’m talking a major makeover. I want to be able to pray for Mark the right way, in a way where you can hear me and honor the prayers and answer them. I don’t think I’ve been taking prayer seriously enough, especially not the prayers about my children.” Her voice wobbled.

“I need you to put me back on the vine, Lord, and give me that life that I know you have. Pump it through me and help me.” She wiped her tears. “And, Father, be a parent to Mark, so he has at least one good parent who knows what he needs. Because I sure don’t.”

The words tightened her throat, and she sat back on her heels and leaned her face into the mattress.

There were no more words, no more petitions. She had nothing left to say, but she hadn’t finished praying. She felt as if God’s hand touched the back of her head, stroked her hair, like a daddy comforting a hurting child. He was here with her, her father and her husband. He was her provider and her sustainer, her teacher and her comforter. He had revived her branch on the vine.

Neither her church nor Steve, nor Sylvia, nor any of her godly friends could do that for her. Only Christ could. And he could do it for Mark as well.

Time passed without any marking. She never looked at the clock nor yearned to get back in bed. She was still praying, even if the words weren’t coming. This time, she was listening, receiving. And God was not locked away somewhere in some inaccessible throne room, silently registering her prayers. Instead, he was sitting here with her, holding her in his lap, loving her like the child who had finally come home.

After
changing planes in Atlanta and San Salvador, Sylvia arrived in Managua at ten the next morning. Weary and stiff, Sylvia got off the plane and ran into Harry’s arms. He looked tired, as always, but his eyes danced with the joy that he’d found since coming to Nicaragua. His work here was effective, she thought. People were impacted and lives were changed.

Her life most of all. An hour hadn’t gone by back in Breezewood that she hadn’t wondered what the children in the orphanage were doing, and if they missed her. Their lives were already so uncertain, and sometimes so tragic, that she dreaded causing them any more sadness.

“Did you bring the pictures?” Harry asked.

She knew he wasn’t asking about the shower, but rather about the grandbaby Sylvia had stopped off to see before she’d gone to Breezewood. “I took six rolls of film,” she said. “She’s the most beautiful baby you’ve ever seen.”

“And the shower?” he asked.

She sighed. “Well, there’s bad news. Mark got arrested. He’s going to serve a year in the juvenile facility.”

“
Cathy’s
Mark? What did he do?”

“Drugs,” she said. “He was selling them.”

Harry touched his heart. “I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it. Cathy’s a wreck. She postponed the wedding again.”

“After the shower and everything?”

“There was no shower. We had to call it off. Everybody still left gifts, but Cathy hasn’t even opened them.”

Harry quietly took the news in as he escorted her to the secondhand car they had bought when they’d first gotten to León. It was a 1975 Fiat Berlin. Half the time it wouldn’t run, but somehow it had gotten Harry to Managua today. A piece of plastic was duct taped to where the back window should be, since it had fallen out shortly after they’d gotten it. They hadn’t been able to replace the glass. He’d had an order in for a year now, but they despaired of ever getting it replaced.

She got into the old car and sat on the torn vinyl seat. As they drove the distance from Managua to León, she told Harry everything that had happened with Mark. When they reached León, instead of getting him to drive her home, she asked him to let her off at the orphanage. She needed to see the children.

She hurried in, and some of the kids spotted her and screamed, “Mama Sylvia!” She fell to her knees and hugged them all at one time, kissing them and exclaiming how she had missed them.

Julie, the other missionary wife who ran the orphanage, hurried into the room, as glad to see her as the kids were. Sylvia could see from Julie’s tired eyes that she was in need of a reprieve. Sylvia got to her feet and hugged her.

“Thank goodness you’re back,” Julie said. “Little Juan is sick. He’s been crying for you.”

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked. Juan was a four-year-old who had been abandoned by his mother, and he was continually struggling through an illness of one kind or another.

“Dr. Harry said strep throat. He gave him a shot this morning, but he’s still sick. I’ve had to try to keep him isolated from the other kids, but it isn’t easy.”

“Where is he?” Sylvia asked. “I want to see him.”

“He’s in the sick room,” Julie said.

She went into the room and found the little boy lying limp on his side. There were dark circles under his eyes, but his eyelids were swollen from crying, and a pink flush mottled his cheeks. She pulled up a chair, sat beside him, and stroked his hair until his little eyes came open.

“Mama Sylvia,” he whispered weakly. She reached down and gave him a hug so tight it lifted him into her lap.

“I missed you,” she told him in his language. “Tell me what feels bad.”

He didn’t have much energy to talk, but he gave her a rough sketch of his ailments, probably embellishing just a little. She could feel that he was burning up with fever. Harry had already given him Tylenol and had tried to cool him down, but now all they could do was wait until the fever broke.

She felt him relax in her arms, and she started to sing a hymn. “Jesus, name above all names, beautiful Savior, glorious Lord…” His eyes came open and he focused on hers for a long moment, then finally they closed, and she felt him drifting off to sleep. Poor child. Julie had undoubtedly been so busy with the other thirty kids in the home that she hadn’t been able to give him much attention. But now Sylvia was here, her heart almost bursting for this child who had been feeling so poorly, with no one to attend to him personally.

When she got to the end of the song, she pressed a kiss on the little boy’s forehead. “Get well now, Juan,” she whispered. “Mama Sylvia is here.”

Incarceration
was nothing like Mark had envisioned. He had pictured himself lying in a cell alone, flat on his back on a bunk bed, listening to the radio with nothing to do all day but read and watch TV. Instead, he had to rise at five A.M., clean up his sleep area, and wait for a ruthless inspection. Then, like enlisted men in the military, they walked single file into the shower, bathed, dressed, then headed for breakfast—at which there was no talking allowed.

At seven
A.M.
, they headed for their first meeting of the day, an affirmation meeting that Mark dubbed “spill-your-guts time.” Mark usually sat there with his mouth shut, listening to his cell mates talk about their drug addictions and their withdrawal, the babies they had fathered by several different girls, the foster homes they’d grown up in or the grandparents who had raised them, and Mark began to feel more and more different…even while he felt the same.

All their pasts were different, all their addictions and their demons. Mark found himself fighting the realization that everyone
here had made choices that had landed them right where they were…including him. He didn’t want to admit that yet. He still wanted to blame his mother. She wasn’t going to get off the hook that easy.

He glanced at the kid named Lazzo, who slept in the bunk next to him. He was trembling more than usual today. He kept rubbing his hands on his pants legs and jerking his head as if to sling his greasy hair back…except that he didn’t have any hair anymore.

Mark looked over at him and whispered, “What’s the matter with you, man?” Lazzo didn’t answer. He just kept fidgeting.

The counselor leading them noticed that Mark had spoken. “Mark, do you have something to say?”

Mark shrugged. “No, not really. I was just watching Lazzo. He’s kind of freaking out over here.”

“What do you mean, freaking out?” the leader asked. He looked at Lazzo and saw the sweat dripping down his face, the trembling in his hands. “You having withdrawal, man?” he asked.

Lazzo just stared at him for a moment, then said, “Man, you gotta help me. I ain’t gone this long before.”

So Lazzo was an addict, then. Mark had no idea what kind of drugs the boy was addicted to, although he knew Lazzo would tell him if he asked. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better, man,” one of the guys said.

Mark didn’t know why everyone just accepted this. “Isn’t there something you can do? I mean, don’t they have some kind of medication or something?”

“He’ll be all right,” the leader said with a dismissive shrug. “Time to line up for movement to the school, everybody.”

Mark got up and watched Lazzo push himself to his feet. His face had a look of desperation on it, and Mark wondered how he was going to get through this dark tunnel if it really did get worse before it got better.

“I need to go to the infirmary,” Lazzo said.

The leader shook his head. “Sorry, kid.”

“But I ain’t feeling good,” Lazzo said. “My heart’s pounding. I need some help.”

Mark looked up at the guard blocking the door, wondering what he would do if Lazzo had a sudden heart attack and dropped right there. “Man, let him go to the infirmary,” Mark said.

“We’ll keep an eye on you, Lazzo,” the guard said. “If you get really sick we’ll take you, but you don’t get to go just for the jitters.”

“But I can’t study like this, man,” Lazzo said, wiping his hands on his pants legs again. “Come on, you gotta help me.”

“In line, Lazzo!”

“Man, I’m telling you. I can’t go!” he shouted. “I have the right to go to the infirmary.”

“Buddy, you ain’t got no rights,” the guard said. “You in jail now. Did you forget? You give up your rights when you come through those doors. Now get back in line or you really
will
need the infirmary.”

Lazzo spat at him and uttered a profanity, and suddenly there were three guards on him, throwing him down on the floor as he fought and kicked and screamed for help.

Mark backed away, watching with horror as the closest thing to a friend he’d found in this place was subdued by three huge guards with weapons and handcuffs. But Lazzo didn’t stop. He just kept yelling and cursing and spitting and kicking with all his might as they wrestled him out of the room. It got quiet, as the remaining inmates lined up.

“Where are they taking him?” Mark asked the kid in front of him.

“To disciplinary, probably,” the kid said. “He ought to know better than to act like that even if he is withdrawing. Ain’t nothin’ worse than disciplinary.”

Mark frowned, wondering if Lazzo would be locked in a room that Mark had seen a year ago when he’d come here with his mother. Everything was steel and bolted down, and there wasn’t even a mattress on the bed. Maybe the guards feared that the inmates would tear off the cloth in strips and use it to hang themselves.

“I’m not going to make it here,” he whispered under his breath. But he didn’t dare say it out loud, for he feared that the
guards would descend on him as well and teach him a lesson about the trouble his mouth could get him into.

But the altercation had given him an idea. Maybe if he was sick, they would let him go to the infirmary, and then he could sleep all day and just hang around and get out of school and work and all these stupid meetings. Maybe then life would be a little more tolerable.

As he sat in class that morning, studying the work that the prison teacher had given him, he tried to figure out some kind of illness he wouldn’t have to prove. Then he’d have easy street, at least for a day or two, before he had to get back to work.

Mark could vomit if he needed to. When he was little, he’d used that talent against his mother when he wanted her to feel sorry for him. She had thought he was just a sensitive child, when all along he’d just been pulling her strings.

He choked back a whole cup of water when they had their break, and when nobody was looking, he spat it out on the floor with a retching noise that drew the guards.

“I’m sick,” he said, on his knees and clutching his stomach.

“No, you ain’t. Get up and clean up this mess.”

“But I’m sick, man!” he said. “You don’t throw up unless you’re sick.”

“He ain’t sick,” a kid named Miller shouted. “I saw him gulping down his water and looking around to see if anybody was looking.”

Mark didn’t know what it was inside him that exploded, but he looked at the little snitch and decided he could take him. Without warning, he launched across the floor and head-butted him, knocking him down. The kid yelled and got back up, and his fist flew into Mark’s face.

Before he knew what hit him, Mark was beneath the rabid boy, fighting for his life. The guards broke it up before the kid could kill him.

“All right, that’s enough! Both of you, to disciplinary.”

Mark felt as if he was really going to be sick now, as he dabbed at his bloody mouth and let the guards drag him out.