When Joy Came to Stay

  Maggie simply wasn’t that kind of girl. He wouldn’t have married her if she…

  As I have loved you, so you must love…love covers a multitude of sins, My son.

  The Lord’s words pierced the terrified place in his soul and he was engulfed by a different sort of anxiety. Whose sins, Lord? What other lies has Maggie told?

  There was no shout from heaven in response, but the feeling—and the command to love unconditionally—remained. I have loved Maggie that way, Lord. I’m still in love with her.

  But was he? Would he love her if her lies were as great as McFadden had said? Doubt, like the first pebble in a landslide, bounced down the rock wall of certainty in his mind.

  Ben stared at the number he’d written and decided to call. He had to know if it was the same home, the same family who had once housed Maggie. He reached for the phone.

  A mature-sounding woman answered on the third ring. “Yes, Taylors.”

  Taylors. That was the same name Madeline Johnson had given him. Nancy Taylor. “Yes, is Nancy or Stu there?” He threw the second name in to give himself an out. If it was the right number, he had no intention of having a conversation with them over the phone.

  The woman sounded puzzled. “This is Nancy, but there’s no Stu here.”

  Ben felt his heart thudding loudly in his chest. “Oh, never mind then. I must have the wrong number.”

  He hung up the phone and stared at his battered body again, willing it to heal. The moment he was well enough to walk out of the hospital and drive a car, he would set out for the place where he could find the next piece of the puzzle. Pieces he had not known existed…pieces that had been a part of Maggie all along.

  Yes, he would go to Woodland, Ohio—just outside Cincinnati—to the home of Nancy and Dan Taylor.

  What will you do if it’s true, Ben?

  For a fraction of an instant, he thought about how he might spend the rest of his life if what John McFadden had said about Maggie were true. Alone. Or possibly remarried. Because lying in the hospital bed, wrapped in layers of bandages and uncertainty, Ben couldn’t imagine how their marriage might survive if McFadden had told the truth.

  If the worst were true, then Maggie had kept crucial parts of her past from him for nearly eight years.

  There’s no way.

  A nurse entered the room and gave him additional pain medication. When she was gone, he slid back down on the bed and closed his eyes, much of his body still throbbing from the beating.

  He thought about their wedding—a beautiful ceremony in her home church—and later how they’d danced for hours at the reception, then taken off for their honeymoon. The week in Mexico’s coastal Tenacatita Bay had been better than Ben had dared imagine. Maggie had been shy at first, tentative, very much the virgin, he thought. But in little time the two of them shared a bond that was only heightened by their physical intimacy.

  McFadden’s claims were ludicrous.

  He closed his eyes, begging God to make sense of Maggie’s struggles, to reveal what information might be missing from her past. Then he put all the questions about why she’d lied and gone to Cincinnati instead of Israel out of his mind, anchored himself to what he still believed to be true, and fell asleep.

  Sixteen

  THE MEETING BETWEEN KATHY GARRETT AND DR. SKYLER WILSON took place in a visiting lounge outside the girl’s hospital room. Normally it was the type of meeting that would be conducted with a child’s parents, but in this case Kathy was all the girl had.

  In the days since Amanda had been beaten nearly to death, Kathy had visited the hospital each night, after her own children were fed and bathed. Now, with her husband at home putting them to bed, Kathy faced the doctor who had cared for Amanda.

  “How is she? Really?”

  Dr. Wilson wore a dark expression, his eyebrows knit together in concern. He flipped through the pages of Amanda’s medical file and then glanced at Kathy. “Physically? She’s healing. I don’t expect any permanent damage. But the rest…”

  Kathy looked down at her hands and nodded. Amanda might heal from her beating, but she would never be the same again. Her eyes rose to meet the doctor’s once more. “Can she recover from it?”

  “She’s a very troubled little girl, Mrs. Garrett.” Dr. Wilson sighed and opened the medical file. “Here. Take a look.”

  Kathy reached for the file and her eyes scanned the page. The notations were frightening: “Withdrawn and anxious…Severely depressed…Possibly suicidal…This child has little will to live and talks incessantly about her mother.” Tears welled in Kathy’s eyes and she passed the file back to the doctor. “Her mother isn’t in the picture.”

  Dr. Wilson clutched the file and tilted his head. “Is there any effort being made to find her?”

  “No. Amanda was given up at birth, Doctor. Even if there were a way to find the mother, I’m sure she’s gone on with her life.”

  “What about a foster family?”

  A soft rush of air escaped from Kathy’s throat. “She was at a foster home when this happened.”

  Dr. Wilson’s eyes narrowed and the muscles in his jaws flexed. “Are police pressing charges?”

  “Oh, sure.” Kathy’s heart constricted at the mention of Mrs. Graystone. How had a woman like that slipped through the system and earned a license to provide foster care? Even if she spent the rest of her days in prison it wouldn’t make up for what she’d done. What had happened to this precious child was enough to make Kathy plead with the Lord for His immediate return. “The woman will serve time, but it doesn’t change what happened to Amanda.”

  The doctor held her gaze a moment longer. “She asks about you, also. Nearly every day. Sometimes I’m not sure if it’s her mother she’s wanting or you.”

  The tears that had been building spilled onto Kathy’s face. “I love her like one of my own, but we can’t take her. We have seven children, doctor. The state says any time she spends with us has to be temporary.”

  The doctor sighed. “I hate these situations.” He glanced back at the open door to Amanda’s room. “She’s so…I don’t know, vulnerable, I guess. She needs a home. Isn’t there something the system can do?”

  Kathy pulled a tissue from her purse and dried her tears. “I’ve been spending the past two years trying to answer that question. She’s slipping through the cracks, and there doesn’t seem to be anything any of us can do about it.”

  He shook his head and opened Amanda’s file, discussing her physical injuries. Many of her bruises had begun to fade. Her young body was resilient and though she’d suffered a collapsed lung, three broken ribs, and multiple stitches from the beating, Amanda would heal.

  “I expect she can go home with you in a few days, if that’s all right.” The doctor stood and held out his hand to Kathy “Thank you for being here. It…well, I don’t know if she’d have made it without you.”

  Kathy nodded. “Just give me a call. I’ll be here the moment she’s released.”

  When the doctor was gone, she headed for Amanda’s room.

  “Kathy! Hi!”

  The girl’s face lit up and Kathy felt her heart lurch. This is the girl who’s depressed? Suicidal?

  If only they could buy a bigger house, build on an additional room. I love her, Lord. Isn’t there anything I can do? She stooped over the child and ran a hand along her small forehead. “Hi, honey. How’re you feeling?”

  The light faded from her young eyes. “I might have to stay two more days.”

  “Yeah…” Kathy wrinkled her nose. “But you have to get those ribs healed up.”

  “I’m going home with you, right?” There was such hope in the child’s face. Kathy wanted to crawl in bed beside her, hold her close, and soothe away the pain like she would for her own children. It isn’t right, Lord, that this little one should be all alone. Help her, Father. Give her a miracle.

  That’s what it would take at this point. People were not looking to adopt seven-year-old girls—especially those wh
o had been abused almost to the point of death. Children like Amanda were marked with the failings of the system, considered damaged goods marred permanently by the very government agency designed to help them.

  The newspaper column, “Maggie’s Mind,” had certainly been a true assessment in this child’s case.

  “Right, Kathy? I get to go home with you, right?” Amanda was waiting for an answer.

  Kathy sat beside the girl, bent down, and gently kissed her cheek, careful not to touch the area above her eye where the stitches remained. “For a little while, sweetie. We can take you in, but only until they find another foster family.”

  The child sighed and a lonely teardrop meandered down her cheek. “Kathy, do you think maybe it will happen soon?”

  Kathy cocked her head and studied the child. “What, honey?”

  “My mom. Do you think she’ll find me soon? This year, maybe?”

  “Oh, sweetie, I hope so.” A weight settled in around Kathy’s heart, and she leaned over, hugging Amanda. God, please…hear her cries, Lord. I’m at the end of my abilities, Father.

  The girl was crying now, and Kathy could feel her small back shaking from the sobs that welled up inside her. “I…I just want to find my mommy. I know she’s…she’s somewhere.”

  “Ah, honey, it’ll be all right. God loves you; I love you. He has a plan for you, even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

  “So—” the child whimpered into Kathy’s hair and she struggled to understand her—“Do you think maybe this is the year?”

  Kathy felt her own tears making their way down her cheeks. “Sweetie, I hope so. I really hope so.”

  Long after Kathy was gone, Amanda sat wide-eyed in bed, staring at shadows on the ceiling…wondering about her mother.

  She had to be somewhere, didn’t she? And wherever she was, she had to remember she’d given a little baby girl up for adoption, didn’t she?

  Amanda studied the shadows, trying hard to imagine her mother’s face, her eyes. She would be beautiful and kind and gentle, just like Kathy.

  Amanda smiled. Just wait! When her mother found out about her and what had happened to her and how much she needed a family, she would come for her. She would take her home and love her forever. Amanda was sure of it.

  Then, like they did every night since the beating, the shadows changed and began moving on the ceiling. Suddenly they became terrifying shapes, looming figures with pointed teeth and claws and horns. And in the midst of them was Mrs. Graystone’s face. The woman was moving in closer, coming after her, trying to kill her.

  “No!” Amanda clasped her hand over her mouth. She didn’t want a pill or a shot like she’d gotten the other nights. She bit her lip and lay still, as quiet as she could. But she kept her eyes wide open, and felt her arms and legs tremble as the Graystone shadows came closer.

  Please, God, make her go away! Suddenly the shadows were still again.

  In the silent darkness, other thoughts began to take shape in her mind. She was seven years old, and no one wanted her. No one at all. Oh, Kathy loved her. She believed that with all her heart. But Kathy didn’t have room for her.

  Sometimes on nights like this she thought about all the people in the world—or just in Ohio—and how many families could take in a seven-year-old girl. There were lots of families. Lots of them! But no one had come forward to claim her.

  Because no one wanted her.

  There must be something in me that people hate. Especially people like Mrs. Graystone. It had been different when Amanda was little, when she lived with Mr. and Mrs. Brownell, before they went to heaven. But now that she was older, there must have been something in her smile or her eyes, something she couldn’t see when she looked in the mirror, but something other people saw. Something that made people turn away from her.

  Otherwise why had she spent time in so many different foster homes? People traded her in like a doll no one wanted to play with anymore. When they didn’t get tired of her, they hurt her. Like the farmhouse boys and that awful Mrs. Graystone.

  The girl squeezed her arms around her ribs and winced in pain. It still hurt, and that made her mad. She had something wrong with her for sure. Something other people wanted to beat out of her.

  The girl thought about it long and hard. It was probably something deep inside her, maybe something that came from her heart. The longer she thought about it the more the shadows began to move again, taunting, threatening…

  Mrs. Graystone was in the hospital somewhere. Amanda didn’t know where—hiding in the corner, maybe—but she was sure the woman was there. Wherever she was, it was close. She was probably just waiting for the nurses to take a break so she could sneak into the room and finish Amanda off.

  The shadows moved more quickly now, and Amanda put her hand over her mouth so no one would hear her scream. Screaming never stopped the shadows anyway. As the tears came stronger and harder, it dawned on her the reason people hated her. It all started back when she was born. Because if her own mother had been willing to leave her alone in the world, how could anyone else ever love her?

  As quietly as she could, without being heard by the nurses or Mrs. Graystone—wherever she was hiding—the girl began to call for the one who could make a difference, the woman who could make everything right.

  “Mommy, where are you? I need you, Mommy. I’m here. I love you. I’m not mad at you for giving me away. I just want to be with you. Please come and find me, Mommy Please. Mommy…Mommy…I need you…”

  Her whispered pleas continued until sometime in the early morning hours when, despite her tears, she fell asleep still afraid and drifted to a place where shadows prevailed and Mrs. Graystone ruled.

  The place of Amanda’s very existence.

  Three hundred miles away, from inside an unmarked police car, two Cleveland officers watched a strange transaction taking place in the back of Topper’s Pop Bar. A blue van had backed up to a storage unit, and now four men worked quickly to unload what seemed to be more than thirty boxes.

  The officers were there for one reason: to arrest John McFadden for attempted murder in the beating of Ben Stovall the week before. But they had taken the unmarked squad car because of something the department had suspected for more than a year. Drugs had been infiltrating the south side of Cleveland for months—large quantities of marijuana and cocaine that were making their way into the hands of dozens of small-time dealers. On more than one occasion the bar had come up during questioning. But police never gained enough information to make a bust or even be granted a search warrant.

  Officers routinely drove by the bar looking for suspicious activity. And though plenty of obvious criminal actions took place—public drunkenness, assault and battery drunken driving—none of them had anything to do with drug smuggling.

  But now, late on this dark Thursday evening in September, the officers were nearly certain they were witnessing a drug operation, and that raised an interesting dilemma. Should they carry out the arrest as planned and risk frightening away the proof of their longtime suspicions? Or would it be better to approach the men working around the van, guns raised, and then call for backup for what might amount to half a dozen arrests?

  In minutes they both came to the same decision. Take care of the business at hand and bring the other information back to the office. If the men were drug dealers, then they were most likely armed. Heavily and to a man. By the time the officers might call for backup, the men would be finished unloading their cargo and long gone.

  “Let’s go get McFadden.” The senior officer motioned to his partner, and a moment later they were inside the bar.

  John McFadden was leaning against the counter, making small talk with two of the patrons when the officers approached him.

  “What the—?” McFadden straightened. He hated cops. Why’d they have to come around at all? Especially tonight when the guys were delivering a shipment of—

  “John McFadden?”

  He scowled at the uniformed men. “Yeah,
what’s it to you?”

  “We have a warrant for your arrest.” The officer stepped forward and snapped handcuffs onto McFadden’s wrist.

  He jerked away, but the officer caught his loose hand and cuffed it, too. What was this? And what was happening outside? Had there been a bust, and now he was going down with his guys? Whatever it was, he would post bail before anyone would make him spend an hour in jail. He pulled his cuffed hands away from the officers and glared at them. “Isn’t there a law against coming into someone’s workplace and arresting them for no reason?”

  “We’re arresting you for the attempted murder of Ben Stovall. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be…”

  McFadden stopped listening. His mind was consumed with two all-invasive thoughts: Ben Stovall had lived, and more important, he’d been crazy enough to tell the cops what had happened. McFadden scowled. Stovall had seen his boys unload a shipment of marijuana. If the lawyer filed a police report on the beating, he probably mentioned the drugs, too. John gritted his teeth and allowed himself to be led away. Whatever the outcome of all of this, he had no intention of staying in jail. He would post bail and then take care of the business he’d failed to finish the first time.

  Eliminating Ben Stovall from the face of the earth.

  Seventeen

  OF ALL THE HOURS IN A DAY, LAURA THOMPSON LOVED THE EARLY morning. Back when her children had flooded her home with noise and activity and constant conversation she had savored the predawn hour as the only time she and God could meet without interruption. How often had the Lord used those morning meetings to speak understanding to her heart or impart life-changing perspective from His Word? This fall morning was no different, and though her house was quieter now. Laura couldn’t imagine welcoming her day any other way. For years she had enjoyed starting her quiet time with a psalm; today she was in chapter 30. Nearly every line seemed vibrantly alive and relevant to all that consumed Laura lately.