A Kingsbury Collection

  It was too much to bear.

  “No! Help me, God … please!” He screamed the words, and they ricocheted against the textured walls of his empty home. When he didn’t hear anything back from the Lord, he buried his head in his hands and did something he hadn’t done since he was a little boy.

  He wept.

  What was Maggie doing? Did she intend to sever their vows, forget about him, push him aside? Why hadn’t she shared any of this with him? I’m your best friend, remember, Maggie? How could you do this? God help me understand. He remained unmoving, pain tearing through his body until slowly, carefully, he was able to accept one part of his new reality: Whatever her motivation, Maggie was very, very sick.

  An hour later he still had no answers, no explanations. But he did have a single goal. Maggie was his partner, his confidante, his wife. He was closer to her than to anyone, anywhere. She was his Maggie girl. Whatever the problem was, he would help her. Even if he spent the rest of his life trying. Ben exhaled, pushing the pain from his lungs and realized it was the same way he’d felt back in 1991, the day he met her.

  And just as he’d decided then, he would win Maggie over and prove his love, whatever it took.

  Ben pulled himself to his feet and sat on the edge of the bed. He forced himself to think. Who would know Maggie well enough to shed light on the situation at hand? She had no siblings, no close friends since Tammy left the neighborhood the year before. Her father had died of a heart attack five years earlier, and that left …

  A thought dawned on him.

  Maybe his mother-in-law would be able to explain Maggie’s behavior. Ben leaned back against the headboard. No, it wasn’t possible. The old woman wouldn’t know anything. Maggie and her mother had never been close, not really. Too different, Maggie always said. Her mother lived in Santa Maria, California, and was an upstanding, private person who wore her faith like a medal of honor.

  Once every few years Ben and Maggie flew to the West Coast for a visit, and Ben would inevitably wonder how this woman could possibly be related to his wife. The older woman was wiry thin, with a rope of gray hair that she kept tightly knotted near the nape of her neck. Proud, private, and pinched. That was the feeling one got after spending ten minutes with Madeline Johnson. She was not a woman who hugged or cried easily, and from all Ben could tell she had struggled to understand her only child since Maggie was old enough to talk.

  She said little and cared less, by Maggie’s assessment, and Ben doubted she’d be any help.

  Still, if this breakdown were somehow tied to something in Maggie’s past, her mother was the only link Ben had, the only person who might help him understand whatever mistruth Maggie was talking about.

  Lead me, Lord, that I might understand her. His vision grew blurred by tears again. I can’t live without her, God.

  The next morning Ben called his office and requested a two-week emergency leave. He’d rarely taken a sick day and he’d built up three months’ time if he needed it. Four hours later, he was on a plane headed for Southern California.

  The entire flight he prayed for one thing—that Maggie’s mother could somehow provide Ben with what he desperately needed: A key to unlock the secrets of Maggie Johnson’s past.

  9

  The first session with Dr. Camas went better than Maggie had expected. She stumbled over her words and hadn’t gotten far in her story. She had the uncomfortable feeling that the things she said rarely made sense. But at least she’d kept her focus. And though the blanket of dark desperation still lay draped around her shoulders, she could somehow sense an occasional ray of light as she spoke. More than once during that initial conversation, Maggie was sure the light was coming from Dr. Camas’s eyes.

  If her life were an oversized ball of secret tangled knots, Maggie believed after one meeting that Dr. Camas was someone who had the patience to untie them. At the end of the session, Maggie felt more hope than she’d known in years. And though she battled unseen demons long into the night, she had a sense of urgency and excitement about meeting the doctor again.

  Maggie spent her second day at Orchards, in the hours before her appointment with Dr. Camas, getting familiar with hospital layout and studying other patients as though she were going to write a column on the place. She had expected to see people with catatonic expressions head-butting walls or chanting single-syllable words for hours at a time. Instead, Orchards was filled with quiet people.

  Quietly desperate people. People just like her.

  Maggie wondered about their lives and what secrets they’d kept that caused them to break down and wind up in a psychiatric hospital. Was she the only one whose crisis was brought about by telling lies?

  I haven’t only told lies, I’ve lived them.

  Breakfast and lunch could be eaten in the cafeteria, but the strange sense of not knowing what she was doing or who she was still hovered nearby, so Maggie thought she’d be safer eating in the chair near her bed. There was a sign on the wall of her room just above the desk that said Orchards Psychiatric Hospital. Maggie figured it was there for people like her. People who were inclined to forget even the most basic information.

  When her mind was tempted to imagine Ben and the warmth of his smile, the security of his embrace, the pain he might be feeling, she forced herself to think of something else. Ben would get over it; after all, he had never really known her. If he had, he never would have married her. He deserved someone real, someone better. Someone holier. He would be better off without her.

  The concentration it required to think correctly and only about certain things left Maggie exhausted by noon. She slept without ever touching her lunch tray.

  The wake-up call came at five minutes before two, and Maggie jumped to her feet. She wasn’t sure where she was or why she was there or what had caused her to sleep, but one thought was clear: Dr. Camas was waiting for her.

  Moving through what felt like a fog, she ran a wet cloth over her face and tried to remember how she had gotten to the hospital. What had happened to her foster boys? Who was caring for them while she was here? The trip through the halls to Dr. Camas’s office felt like it took an hour. When she took her seat across from him, her hands were sweaty and she was breathless, desperate for even a moment of fresh air.

  “You feeling okay, Maggie?”

  The calm in Dr. Camas’s voice worked warmth through her and she settled back into the cushioned chair. “Not really.”

  Silence.

  He must think I’m crazy. I am crazy … why am I here? Where are the boys? Where’s Ben? She started to get up. “I think I better go since I’m supposed to—”

  “Maggie.” The doctor’s voice halted her, and she fell back into the chair, her eyes locked on his.

  “Yes?”

  “This is our time. Remember?”

  Our time? Our time … our time. That’s right. They’d planned this meeting. She gritted her teeth and forced the clouds from her mind. “Our session, you mean?” Her voice was quiet and weak, nothing like she remembered herself sounding.

  “Right. Our session. You were going to tell me more about your past … about what’s happened to upset you.”

  Yes, that was it. She was upset. Very upset. She dug her fingertips into her temples and rubbed in small, tight circles. Then suddenly, almost as though she were seeing it played on a motion picture screen, her past began to appear right before her eyes.

  As it did, she shared every detail with Dr. Camas.

  It was the summer of 1991, the summer before Maggie’s senior year in college, a season when she was standing on the edge of everything pure and good and hope-filled about the future, a time when the plans God had for her life seemed firmly in reach.

  It was the summer she met Ben Stovall.

  Maggie had grown up in Akron; Ben, in Cleveland. Once a year the church Ben attended staged an annual Prayer and Picnic. It was a time when neighboring churches from various denominations could gather and agree on two things: the sovereignty
of Christ and the necessity of prayer. Over time, the celebration grew until by the late 1980s the event lasted through the weekend and was sometimes attended by thousands of people from more than a dozen churches. Games were held for various age groups, and revival-style preaching echoed across the grounds each evening.

  The summer of ’91 was the first time Maggie’s church had joined in. She was twenty-one and studying journalism at Akron University. There’d been nothing else going on that day so when her parents suggested the Cleveland picnic, Maggie agreed to go.

  “Maybe I was trying to earn points with them,” Maggie told the doctor. “I never … ”

  Dr. Camas waited. “Yes?”

  “I never knew if my mother was proud of me or not. She was quiet, I guess.”

  Maggie drifted back again and explained that if one thing mattered to her parents, it was the importance of church family. After all, Maggie’s family was very involved in their small congregation. If the elders had planned an event for the weekend, the Johnson family would be there. It was that simple.

  Flyers were handed out to people as they parked their cars and headed for the open field where the event was set up, and Maggie’s mother looked the information over carefully. “There seem to be events for young people too, dear. Why don’t you run along and see if there’s anyone you know? That way you won’t be stuck with us.”

  Even now Maggie could hear the frown in her mother’s voice, feel her cool, impersonal touch as she turned Maggie in the right direction and sent her off to find her peers. She took the flyer and found the sports events at the east end of the field, and as she arrived at the location she saw a dozen friends from her church in Akron.

  “You came!” Susie Fouts ran up and pulled Maggie into a hug.

  “Nothing better to do.” Maggie linked arms with Susie and took in the scene. There were at least two hundred college kids milling about while a handful tried to organize games.

  “They’re doing a tug-of-war, but it has to be teams. Come on … ” Susie grabbed Maggie’s hand and pulled her into a full run. “We’re next.”

  Maggie paused in her storytelling and stared at her hands.

  “What is it?” Dr. Camas’s words did not come out in a hurry; clearly they weren’t demanding an explanation for her pause. Instead, they were gentle, carefully prodding, as though he were looking for the bruised area in an injury.

  Tears flooded Maggie’s eyes and she blinked them back, struggling to speak. “Susie … Susie … ” She couldn’t finish, and a sense of panic welled up in her. What if she started sounding crazy again? What if she couldn’t force herself to remember? What if Susie hadn’t gotten sick …

  Dr. Camas folded his hands comfortably and waited. “Whenever you’re ready, Maggie.”

  She had the feeling the doctor would be content to wait that way into the evening if necessary. After all, neither of them was going anywhere. She exhaled slowly. “Susie was my best friend growing up.” She gulped and wiped a tear that had broken loose and tumbled down her cheek. “I … miss her.”

  “Yes.”

  Maggie looked up and again she saw that strange, comforting light in Dr. Camas’s eyes. Is that You, Lord? Beckoning me to Yourself?

  No one wants you, Maggie. You’re not a Christian, you’re an imposter.

  She shifted her gaze back to her hands. “She died in childbirth a year after Ben and I were married.” Maggie met the doctor’s eyes once more and saw them fill with compassion.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was warm, comforting.

  “I … never told Ben.”

  Dr. Camas said nothing, but Maggie thought he wanted her to continue. “He would have asked too many questions.”

  Her mind drifted back again and the images returned. Susie running up to her, taking her hand. The two of them joining the group breathless and giggling. Maggie continued recounting the story.

  Maggie’s church youth group lined up on one side of the rope opposite Cleveland Community. Since the Cleveland group was hosting the Prayer and Picnic weekend, they had matching shirts and boastful attitudes.

  “They think they’re king of the tuggers, but not this time!” Susie shouted. “Come on everybody. Grab the rope and get ready.”

  Both teams took their places, and at the last possible moment a young man on the opposing team stuck his head out of line and made eye contact with Maggie. Something in his smile made her heart skip a beat, and Maggie couldn’t help but grin at him.

  “Pull!” A voice instructed loudly. The young man was still staring at her, and as the rope went taut, he lost his grip and was yanked forward where he fell face first in the dirt. Without his help, his team’s momentum shifted badly, and Maggie and her teammates surged backward, landing on the ground in what was an unquestionable victory.

  “We did it!” Susie had one fist in the air and the other around Maggie’s neck. “I think it was the spinach I ate last night for dinner. Had to be good for something.”

  Maggie stood up and dusted off her jeans, her eyes still focused on the guy from Cleveland Community. Susie followed her gaze. “Whatcha looking at, Mag?”

  “Nothing.” Maggie turned away but it was too late.

  “Don’t lie to me. You’re looking at that guy. The one who let go.” She looked from Maggie to the young man and back. “Hey, I think he likes you, Mag … ” She lowered her voice and took another look at him, and both girls saw that he was standing up, brushing himself off, and taking a fair amount of ribbing from his friends. Later Susie had told her that every few seconds he was glancing in Maggie’s direction.

  “Is he still looking at me?”

  Susie nodded, her eyes wide. “He’s gorgeous, Mag. I’m serious.”

  Maggie held her head high and kept her back to her apparent admirer. She hissed in a whisper barely loud enough for Susie to hear. “Stop staring at him. You’ll scare him off.”

  Yanking Susie by the sleeve, the girls started to leave when the young man ran up. “Hey, wait!”

  Maggie and Susie whirled around at the same time. Susie recovered first. “Did you want our autograph? We did just beat the host team, after all.”

  “No … ” His gaze connected with Maggie’s, and she felt an attraction that went to her very core, far beyond anything she’d ever known. “I’m Ben … Ben Stovall.”

  The girls nodded, and Susie looked from Ben to Maggie and back again. “Well, I’ll be right back. My little sister’s at the picnic tables and I promised her a snow cone.

  “Yeah.” Ben tore his eyes away from Maggie for a moment and glanced at Susie. “Nice to meet you.”

  Maggie tried to suppress a smile as Susie left. “You didn’t even get her name.”

  A dimpled grin spread across his face. “I wasn’t trying to get her name … ” Maggie felt something inside her begin to melt under his unshakable gaze. “I was trying to get yours.”

  Susie’s family had to leave early that day, so Maggie and Ben spent the rest of the afternoon and evening playing Frisbee and water balloon toss and sitting side by side as they waited for the prayer meeting to begin.

  He was the son of missionaries and had spent the first fourteen years of his life in and out of Africa. His parents worked for the church now, helping with outreach programs in downtown Cleveland.

  “Why’d you come back?”

  “Sports. I’m the oldest, and my parents knew I wanted to go to high school in the States.”

  Over the next hour she learned that Ben had been quarterback of the Cleveland State University football team until he graduated the year before. Now he was about to begin his second year in the college’s law school. Maggie felt like she’d fallen into a marvelous dream until he said the words she’d been fearing all day.

  “You seeing anyone?” His eyes sparkled in the waning sunlight and Maggie felt her heart quicken.

  “No. You?”

  “Actually … ” His gaze fell and he poked his toe at a chunk of Bermuda grass. “Yes. But it isn’
t serious.”

  Eventually he filled in the details and admitted that her name was Deirdre. Her parents and his had been family friends forever and now she worked as a loan officer at a bank in Cleveland.

  “But you aren’t … you know, serious?” Why was he paying her so much attention if he already had a girlfriend?

  Ben shrugged. “Deirdre’s a nice girl. We’re definitely not serious physically, if that’s what you mean.” He caught Maggie’s gaze. “I’m waiting ’till marriage for that. You too?”

  Maggie remembered the hot feeling that had worked its way up her cheeks. She was completely taken by Ben, by everything about him—even his knack for being completely direct. “Yeah, I’m waiting.”

  He smiled at her, meeting her eyes in a way that made her insides melt like butter on hot bread. “Good.” His voice was smooth and measured as his gaze lingered. “I like a girl who waits.”

  Her cheeks grew hotter still, and she fingered the ring on her right hand.

  Ben noticed and took her fingers carefully in his, examining the silver band. “Pretty. Who’s it from?”

  Maggie’s senses were entirely focused on the way their fingers felt together. What is this? I barely know him. No one had ever made her feel the way this man, this stranger, was making her feel. “A faith promise ring. My dad gave it to me.”

  Ben withdrew his hand and grinned at her again. “That’s great, Maggie. Making a promise to wait until you’re married to have sex, and knowing your father’s praying for you. Not many girls around like you, you know that?”

  “What about Deirdre?” Maggie was enjoying his attention, but if he had a girlfriend …

  “I guess the trouble is I’ve never really felt any spark with her.” Something about his tone of voice left Maggie no doubt that he was feeling sparks now. His smile faded, but his eyes welled with admiration for her. “Know what I mean?”