Brittany, baby, where are you? God, keep her safe.
Let go. Let God. Live. Let live. Easy does it. Easier said than done, Lord. Easier if his mind and hands were busy.
He told Teresa Espinoza he’d sign as soon as she had the papers ready.
Principal Kalish tossed a stapled document across his desk. Eunice could tell by his expression that he had had it. Timothy would receive no mercy this time. “It’s called a zine, Mrs. Hudson, short for underground magazine.”
She flipped through the photocopied pages, heat coming up her neck and filling her face. One article was titled “Who’s Really in Charge” and dealt with gangs roving the hallways while teachers looked the other way. The second page had a satirical article on school athletes. Every page had a cartoon. One was unmistakably Principal Kalish, his balding head and widening girth exaggerated by the button-popping shirt he was wearing. He was pictured sitting in his big office chair, feet propped up on his desk, a cigarette in one hand, a bottle of Johnnie Walker scotch in the other, a sign on his back wall: Just Say No. Another cartoon showing two PE teachers in a fistfight on the football field was captioned “It’s all in how you play the game.” “Safety in schools” had students passing a bazooka around the side of a metal detector while a teacher was closely examining a girl’s nail file. The last had the school nurse saying, “If it doesn’t work, I can always drive you to the abortion clinic,” while handing out condoms to students getting off the school bus.
Numb, Eunice sat, convinced she had failed as a parent. Tim sat beside her. She hoped he realized anything he said now would be held against him. How was she ever going to tell Paul about this? What would he do to Tim when he heard?
“We confiscated all his copies. Tim is suspended for three days, and I’m recommending expulsion. He’s lucky I don’t bring charges against him for that libelous piece of trash!”
“It’s freedom of the press,” Tim said. “And no more than everyone in the student body already knows about what you keep in your bottom drawer.”
Principal Kalish’s face turned beet red. “Who else was involved in your little enterprise?”
Tim crossed his arms and slouched. “I refuse to divulge my sources.”
“I want names!”
The meeting went from bad to worse.
On the way home, Eunice dissolved in tears. “Help me to understand, Tim.”Help me understand, God. She felt powerless. “Why did you do this?”
“Because I’m sick of games.” He glared out the front windshield. “I’m sick of everyone telling me to live one way while they live another. I’m sick of the whole—” he used a vile word—“system.”
Eunice blushed. “You don’t have to talk that way to get your point across.”
“If you think I’m bad, you ought to stand in our school corridor for five minutes. You’ll hear a lot worse!”
“You’re not supposed to talk like everyone else, Tim. You’re a Christian.”
“Yeah? Well, what I’ve seen of Christians lately doesn’t make me want to be anything like one.”
She pulled into the garage. “Does that include me?”
“You most of all.”
Stunned into hurt silence, she could only look at him. He got out of the car and slammed the door. She got out, afraid he might try to leave. What would she do if he did? “We need to talk about all this, Tim.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Okay? Go ahead and call Dad. Tell him whatever you want. You think I care? He won’t listen anyway. And all you ever do is try and fix everything. You can’t! Don’t you get it?” He stormed into the house.
She fought the urge to follow him and scream at him for getting her into this mess. What was she going to tell his father? What would the congregation think when they heard about it? A story like this would spread like wildfire with LaVonne and Jessie and Shirl fanning the flames. One of the students would say something to one of the parents who would say something to a friend who’d call another friend until the entire congregation was involved.
Weeping in frustration, Eunice tried to figure out what to do. She couldn’t think straight. Maybe a cup of tea would help.
The telephone rang as it did countless times during the day. Someone always wanted to talk with her about something, ask her advice, complain, or cry on her shoulder, until she wanted to press her hands over her ears and scream. The answering machine picked up and she heard her own voice. “This is the Hudsons. We’re sorry we can’t answer right now. Please leave your name, number, and a short message after the beep. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.” So sweet. So calm. So phony.
“Euny, this is Mom.”
Eunice clenched and unclenched her hands, took a deep breath, and picked up the telephone. “Hi, Mom.”
“Screening your calls?”
“I just walked in the door with Tim.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She pressed her hand over her mouth and shut her eyes tightly. Sitting, she rocked back and forth on the chair. Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine. How many times had she uttered that lie over the past few years?
“All right,” Lois said slowly. “If everything is all right, then there’s nothing to stop you and Tim from coming down for a few days, is there?”
What was the use of lying? “After what happened today, I think Paul will ground Tim until he’s eighteen and can leave home.”
“That bad?”
“Worse than bad. Tim thinks all Christians are hypocrites. Including me. And you know what?” She started to cry. “I’m beginning to think he’s right.”
“What’d he do? Burn down the church?”
Eunice gave a weak laugh. “Nothing that drastic. He wrote a zine.”
“A what?”
“An underground newspaper. He seems to have a talent for satire and expressing teen angst.”
“What will Paul do about it?”
She was afraid to think. “Ground him.” Lacerate her.
“Tim and I have always gotten along, you know.”
“I know.” There were only two people in the world Tim seemed to listen to these days: Samuel Mason and his grandmother. She wished it didn’t hurt so much that he couldn’t trust her anymore.
“I could certainly use his help, Eunice. The house sold this morning. That’s what I called to tell you. I’ve put an offer on a three-bedroom condo. I have a lot of packing and discarding to do. He wouldn’t be coming down here for a vacation. I’d put him to work. It would give him something to do and time for us to talk. Sometimes a grandmother can reach in where a mother can’t.”
“I can’t seem to do anything right these days.”
“Don’t blame yourself for everything, honey. You think about my offer. Talk it over with Paul. If he has qualms, tell him to call me.”
Eunice was shaking when she called Paul. “I know, Eunice. I just got off the phone with Don Kalish.” She was relieved at the gentle sound of his voice. Maybe he would be reasonable this time. Maybe they could talk things over and try to figure out what they could do to help Tim through this hard time. “Hang on a second,” he said. She could hear Paul speak to Reka. “Thanks. I’ll get to it as soon as I’m off the telephone. Just close the door on the way out, would you? Thanks again. You’re a real peach.” He came back on the line. “As I was saying . . . ” His voice was different. Rippling over dark water.
Nothing was going to change. She stood in the kitchen, body rigid, eyes closed, while he read her the riot act. He told her what the principal had to say about their son. He managed to keep his voice quiet enough that Reka wouldn’t hear, but it was a scream of rage in her ear. Everything was her fault. She was a lousy mother. He dredged up every misdeed Tim had committed since he’d been “old enough to know better” and laid the blame for all of it at her feet. He didn’t give her a chance to say anything in her own defense or in defense of her son.
“I don’t want to see his face when I come home this evening. You
tell him to stay in his room, or I won’t be held responsible for what I say or do to him.”
She could hear his other phone line ring. “Hang on, Eunice. We’re not done talking.”
We?
He put her on hold.
She stood, shell-shocked and wounded. She waited two minutes. Feeling came back, deep, turbulent, rising. She waited another minute before Paul came back on the line. “Now, where was I?”
Did he really expect her to remind him? Was she supposed to take her position as target, hand him the ammunition to reload? He was a trained sniper. He never missed. “I’m taking Tim to your mother’s.”
“No, you’re not. You can’t dump Tim on her and expect Mom to solve your problems. She has enough problems of her own.”
“Tim isn’t a problem, Paul. He’s a person. He’s our son.”
“Now, look—”
“No. You listen. Your mother sold her house. She called a few minutes ago. She knows the situation. She invited me and Tim to come down. She said she could use Tim’s help. And I’m taking him.”
“You listen to me, Eunice.”
“I’ve listened, Paul. I’ve listened and listened. One of these days, you’re going to have to try it.” She hung up. How was it possible to love someone so much and dislike him so intensely? The telephone rang again. Ignoring it, she went upstairs. She tapped on Tim’s door and walked in. He was sprawled on his bed, his arm flung above his head as he stared morosely at the ceiling.
“I don’t feel like talking.”
“Get packed. We’re going to Grandma’s. We’re leaving in half an hour.”
“How long am I staying?”
“We’ll figure that out when we get there.”
Eunice drove south on Highway 99, praying with every mile that she was doing the right thing. When her cell phone rang, she turned it off and tossed it into the backseat. Time enough to face the music when she reached North Hollywood.
Tim sat in the passenger seat, earphones on, eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. She didn’t presume to know what he was thinking. She tried not to allow her imagination to create scenarios. Her heart was breaking because she knew she needed to relinquish her son into Lois’s hands, even knowing that she had not always been successful with her parenting either. If she had, would Paul be so far from the Lord, so blind to his own insensitivity toward others, especially in his own household?
Oh, Father, forgive me for failing this child of Yours. Forgive me for all my mistakes in rearing him. All I have ever wanted is for my son to love You more than anyone or anything else. And now he says he doesn’t think he wants to be a Christian.
She gripped the steering wheel tighter.
Lord, Tim sees my submission to his father as weakness and cowardice. Is he right? Have I used submission as a means of avoiding my responsibility? Is Paul right? Am I too permissive and too blind to see what Tim needs? I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything except that time is running out. My son is going to be sixteen soon. In two years, he’ll be old enough to leave. And then what, Father?
She had never known how to fight Paul’s ambition. In the beginning, she had seen his zeal as evidence of his vibrant relationship with Jesus. It was only later that she wondered if he was more interested in proving himself to his father than the Father. Whenever she had tried to draw him out of the tide sweeping him along, he had resisted and lashed out against her. Finally, she had watched him pour his passion and energy and time into building something he said would glorify God. And all the time she watched, she felt less and less peace about his work, less and less peace about him. Sometimes she resented the church because it seemed the very thing destroying her family. She couldn’t get away from it. It invaded her life.
It had been so different growing up. She had never felt abandoned by her father. She had never doubted his love. She had seen him at work with his congregation. He had taught with conviction and by example. She had seen his peace, experienced it in his presence. She could not remember a time when he had lost his temper and used his knowledge of God’s Word to beat her down, to crush her beneath his heel. She had been able to rest in God’s love in those days. But she had been a child with little life experience.
Oh, Daddy, I miss you so much.
I’m here.
She felt goose bumps.
The Grapevine loomed ahead, the long, narrow stretch of freeway going up into the mountains. She took the off-ramp and pulled into a gas station. Tim took off his earphones and looked at her. “Can I have some money so I can get something to eat?”
She gave him enough money to buy sandwiches, chips, and sodas while she pumped gas, checked the oil and water, and washed the windshield. She went in to pay for the gas and freshen up. She washed her face and pulled a paper towel from the dispenser.
Tim was swallowing the last of his sandwich when she got back in the car. She unwrapped her sandwich and popped the top of her soda before starting the car.
“You okay, Mom?”
“I’m going to be.” She smiled at him. “Everything is going to be all right, Tim.”
“Sure, Mom.”
“It is. I know it is. God has a plan.” You do, don’t You, God?
When they arrived, Lois came outside to meet them. “I didn’t expect you until late this evening.”
“Mom’s in a hurry to unload me.” Tim swung his duffel bag onto his back and headed for the front door.
“There’s homemade beef soup on the stove, Tim. Help yourself. I’ll put the garlic bread in the oven in a minute.” She put her arm around Eunice’s waist. “How was the trip?”
“Quiet.”
“You didn’t bring much.”
“I’m going home tomorrow.”
“Paul called. I told him the house sold and I could use Tim for a while. He was amenable to the idea.”
Eunice smiled wryly. “I’m sure he was.”
“I think this is all God’s timing, Euny. And His mercy, too. Tim and I have a lot to talk about.”
Lois did most of the talking during dinner. “I want you to help me go through all of your grandfather’s files, Tim. I’m taking the pictures down and putting them into one album. . . .”
Tim’s surly, bored demeanor was gone. He hadn’t been in the house ten minutes before he had begun to relax. Eunice watched and listened. When they finished eating, she waved Lois into her seat and cleared the dishes. Tears pricked as she listened to the change in Tim’s voice. Lois had always been able to make him laugh. Eunice started the dishwasher. “I’m going to hit the sack,” she said.
“The blue bedroom is ready for you, honey. I put fresh towels out on the counter.”
“Thanks.” She kissed Lois’s cheek. Tim turned his face away when she tried to kiss him. Her heart felt as though it would burst with pain. Oh, Lord, reach into my son and draw out the hurt. Turn him back to You. And me. Please.
“I hope I’ll see you in the morning, Tim.”
Eunice didn’t sleep well that night. She rose as the sun came up, tiptoed into the spare bedroom where her son was sleeping. He looked like a little boy, all the angst and strain gone as he slept. She brushed a few strands of sandy blond hair back from his forehead. It was still soft and silky. He was still her baby. He always would be no matter how old he was. “I love you, Timmy. I love you very much.” Enough to let you go. She leaned down and kissed him softly. He didn’t stir. She closed the door quietly behind her.
She showered, dressed, brushed her teeth and hair, packed her few toiletries in her overnight case, and headed downstairs. Lois was in the kitchen, coffee ready. They had sat together at this table many times before. Lois stretched her hands out to her. Eunice took them. “God won’t let us down, Euny. Hang on to that.”
Eunice squeezed Lois’s hands and let go. “I’d better be on my way.”
“You should have breakfast first.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Coffee, at least.”
“I’ll stop so
mewhere along the way.”
Lois’s eyes were tear-filled. “I’ll take good care of him, Euny. I promise.”
Eunice nodded. She couldn’t trust herself to speak.
As she drove down the hill and headed for the freeway, she started to cry.
My son, Lord, my son, my son . . .
Only He could understand.
CHAPTER 14
STEPHEN WASTED no time in getting to work on his property. With the money he was paid from a conceptual design of an office building in Vacaville, he brought in a crew and jacked up the Rockville building. He drove down to a corner market and hired Mexican day laborers to remove the old foundation stones, chisel off the old mortar, and then wash and stack the stones behind the building. Stephen had them excavate four feet of earth. He made the rebar grate for the basement floor and set up the frame for a block wall.
Once the concrete was poured, two masons set the blocks up to ground level. Stephen laid the old foundation stones himself, setting in lines of black and white stone to create a pattern in the three-foot aboveground base. It was two months before the old store was lowered into place and secured.
Next, he raised the sagging roof two feet, removed and replaced damaged beams, shingled the roof, and reconstructed the false front. He hired an electrical engineer to remove the old wiring and upgrade to surpass code, and a plumbing engineer to remove the archaic pipes. He removed the old water closet for restoration and ordered replicas of antique bathroom tubs, sinks, and fixtures. The back door and main-floor bathroom would have handicap access.
With the foundation finished, the wiring and plumbing redone, he moved into the downstairs and started work on the upstairs apartment. It had been a long time since he’d been on the labor end of a project, but he was enjoying himself despite a smashed thumb, various cuts, bruises, and slivers, and aching muscles when he fell into bed each night.