“Me, either,” Christy said. “But it’s okay. Come on. We have to get to Emily.”
Every muscle in her body was rigid with tension as she made her way up the creaky stairs and saw the door barricaded with that big bench, a steel drum, and some other equipment.
She set down the jack and tried to pull the bench away, but she wasn’t strong enough. “All right,” she said, grabbing the jack. “Never fear. This’ll move it right out of the way.” She wedged it the best she could between one of the pieces of machinery and the wall, then began to pump it. It immediately began to expand, pushing the bench inch by inch back from the door.
“That’s good! I can open it now,” Christy said. She slipped between the bench and the door, and opened it.
Emily was still sleeping deeply on the floor. “There she is!” Christy said. “I think she’s sick.”
Doris slipped into the filthy place and knelt next to the tiny child. She touched her head. “She’s burning up with fever,” she said. “Poor little thing.” She picked her up in her arms, and handed the flashlight to Christy. “Here, I’ll carry her, and you lead us back out with the light.”
Emily didn’t stir as they hurried out of the building.
“Where will we go?” Christy asked.
“My place,” Doris said. “It’s only about a mile up the road. I can call your mama and daddy from there, and get you somethin’ to eat. Give me that Coke, will ya?”
Christy handed it to her, and watched as she poured a couple of drops on Emily’s lips, then a couple more. She saw Emily swallow. “Come on, darlin’,” Doris said. “Drink some of this, for Doris. It’ll make you feel better.”
Slowly, Emily’s eyes began to open, and she raised her head enough to drink. When the bottle was empty, Doris said, “Okay, let’s go.”
They walked for what seemed an eternity, and her high heels began to cut into her feet, rubbing blisters and making her ankles ache. But she had the kids, she thought. That was the main thing. That and the money.
“Did that man hurt you, honey?” she asked as they trudged along.
Christy shrugged. “He locked us up.”
“But did he . . . do anything? Are you all right?”
“I’m hungry,” Christy whispered. “And my hands hurt. And I’m cold.”
Emily stirred in Doris’s arms. “Christy?” she whispered.
Christy looked over at Emily. “Yeah.”
“Did God answer our prayers with her?” she whispered weakly.
Christy smiled. “Yeah, he did.”
Doris didn’t know quite what to say to that. She’d never been the answer to a prayer before.
“Is Daddy coming to get us?” Emily asked.
“You bet he is, darlin’,” Doris said. “As soon as I can get us to a phone. Look. See right up there? That’s my trailer.”
Christy looked so relieved that she stopped for a moment and just took in the sight, before pushing herself on.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Tony went back to the house, unable to rest or go home until he’d found the children. Lynda had already left, and Sharon, Jenny, Anne, and Ben all sat around the kitchen table, waiting that excruciating wait that seemed almost pointless.
He joined them at the table, feeling so helpless, so ineffective as a police officer, so inept as a human being.
And then the phone rang. Jenny sprang for it. “Hello?”
“Yes . . . uh . . . is this the Robinson’s residence?” a woman with a deep southern drawl asked.
“Yes, it is.”
“Well, this is Doris Stevens—Jake Stevens’ mama? You know my boy, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Jenny said.
“I’ve got some good news for you, honey.”
“What?” Jenny asked cautiously.
“I’ve found your kids.”
Jenny sprang out of her seat and grabbed her father’s arm. “Are . . . are you sure? Christy and Emily? You have them?”
Everyone sprang up from the table, and Ben grabbed the phone away from her. “This is Ben Robinson. You’ve found my girls?”
“Sure have,” Doris said. “Here’s Christy. She can tell you for herself.”
He waited a moment, then heard Christy’s hoarse, weak voice. “Daddy?”
“Honey!” He burst into tears. “Where are you?”
“With Miss Doris. Daddy, will you come get us now? I want to go home.”
“Of course!” he shouted. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t feel good, Daddy,” Christy said. “And Emily’s real sick. She has fever.”
“Put the lady back on.”
Doris took the phone back. “Hello? I can give you directions if you’ve got a pencil. I’d bring ’em to you, but I’m afraid I wrecked my car to keep from hittin’ your daughter.”
He jotted down the directions, and they all jumped into the car.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Christy ate a piece of cold chicken and watched out Doris’s window for any sign of her father, but it had only been a few minutes since she’d talked to him. Doris said it would be at least fifteen before he’d be here.
Doris was holding Emily like a baby and coaxing her to drink. The child’s fever was too high, and she hoped with all her heart that they’d be able to stop it in time. “Come on, honey. Drink some more for Doris. You don’t want your daddy to be all worried about you, do you? He’s on his way, you know.”
Emily’s eyes fluttered open, and she drank a little more.
“My heavens, look at these hands,” Doris said. “Honey, you need to go back to that pan of water and soak your hands,” she told Christy. “Get some of that dirt off. They’re all infected. And this child’s whole hands are swollen. I’m gonna have to let the doctor clean hers. I can’t bear to hurt her when she’s this sick. You know, you’re a hero.”
“Me?” Christy asked, turning around. “What did I do?”
“You may have saved your baby sister’s life.”
“You did that,” Christy said. “I prayed that God would send help. He sent you.”
“Oh, now, I don’t know about none of that superstitious stuff. I prob’ly woulda seen you anyway.”
Christy smiled knowingly and shook her head. “Nope. He sent you.”
“Wouldn’t I know it if God had sent me?”
“Maybe not,” Christy said. “But he sent you just like he sent the cat.”
“What cat?”
“The cat who protected us from the rats.”
Doris shivered. What had these poor children endured for the last few days? Her heart ached as she looked down at the pale, weak child in her arms. No baby should have to go through such things.
“I hope they sling that man up by his toenails and make him eat mud,” she muttered. “Treatin’ two beautiful little girls like this. It just breaks my heart.” She dabbed at the tears in her eyes.
Christy saw headlights, and began to jump up and down. “They’re here! They’re here!”
Doris peered out the window and saw the station wagon, followed by two or three other cars, some of them police squad cars and a television news van. “Blazes,” she muttered. “Wish I’d had time to wash my hair. Go let your daddy in, honey.”
Christy ran to the door and down the steps, and straight into Ben’s arms as he bolted out of the car. Then Sharon took her from him, and the child clung to her mother.
Anne ran past them and into the house, and found Emily lying weak and feverish in Doris’s arms. Sobbing, Anne took her quickly from the woman, kissed the child’s face, and began whispering to her.
Tony’s eyes were red with emotion as he stepped into the trailer, followed by Ben and Christy and Sharon. Doris wiped her eyes at the reunion as the mothers cried over their children.
“She’s burning up,” Anne shouted up to Ben.
“Her hands are infected, too,” Doris pointed out. “And she ain’t eaten a bite. I tried to feed her, but all she’d do was drink a little.”
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“Christy’s feverish, too,” Sharon said. “We’ve got to get them to the hospital.”
“The squad car will escort you,” Tony said. “Go ahead and take them.”
Photographers were gathering and cameras rolled as the children were rushed out to the car and driven away with a flashing escort. Doris ran out and grabbed Tony as he started to get in his car, ignoring the reporters who were trying to get her to stop and give them an interview about how she’d found the children. “Can you drive me to the hospital?” she asked. “I really want to know how the little things are.”
Tony looked surprised. “Sure. We’re going to need a statement from you, anyway. How did you find them?”
Doris started to say that it was a fluke, that the child had just appeared in her headlights. But then she thought better of it. “Well, accordin’ to that little Christy, God sent me to ’em. She swears up-an’-down that I’m an answered prayer.”
Tony’s eyes welled with tears, and he smiled. “You know what, Doris? Christy’s absolutely right.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
The children were kept overnight in the hospital, with IVs to battle their dehydration, and antibiotics to fight the infections originating in their hands. Both girls had their hands bandaged, and Christy had a bandage over her forehead.
Anne and Sharon requested that they be allowed to share a room, so that Ben could see both children at once. Jenny came in as soon as someone from their church had come to relieve her from taking care of Bobby, and tears sprang into her eyes at the sight of her two sleeping sisters. “Oh, Mom . . . Anne . . . I’m so sorry for letting this happen to them.”
Sharon pulled her older daughter into a hug. “Honey, it’s not your fault. And they’re going to be fine.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Were they . . . abused in any way? Molested, I mean?”
“No,” Sharon said with certainty. It was one of the first things the doctor had looked for.
She walked Jenny back out of the room, knowing that Anne would keep an eye on Christy if she woke. “Honey, I know you’re still blaming yourself for all this, but I want you to know that some good did come out of it.”
“What?” she asked. “How?”
“God used it, to make me confront the fact that I’d never really forgiven your father. Or Anne. In my heart, I think I really hated them.”
“You couldn’t have hated them, Mom. You let them move in with us.”
“Well, I had several different motives for that. One of them was to look good to you. The more generous I looked, the worse they looked. But there sure wasn’t any love involved.”
“What about now?”
She glanced back in the room. “Anne’s a mother, just like me. She loves her kids every bit as much. And she’s been a good stepmother to you and Christy. I haven’t made it easy for her. And your father . . . he’s not a bad man. He made some mistakes, and his mistakes hurt me, and you, too. But I was far from perfect myself, Jenny.”
Jenny wiped her eyes. “Me, too.”
“God forgives our mistakes,” Sharon said.
“He’s awesome,” Jenny whispered. “So awesome.”
Sharon hugged her daughter again, and saw Tony standing across the hall. He’d heard everything. “Tell you what,” she told Jenny. “Why don’t you stay with Christy for a while, and I’ll go get something to eat. I haven’t had much in the last few days, myself, and I’m starting to feel a little hungry.”
“Okay,” Jenny whispered, and went back into the room.
Sharon went out of the room and looked up at Tony—who looked as tired and relieved as she did. “You’ve been great, Tony. Really great.”
He seemed to struggle with emotion as he looked down at his feet. Unable to say what was on his mind, he nodded toward the waiting room. “Doris is the real hero. She’s in the waiting room.”
Sharon took his hand and they went to the waiting room. Doris was in there with Jake and Lynda, chattering ninety-to-nothing about how she’d found the girls. When she saw Sharon, she sprang to her feet. “How are they, hon?” she asked.
“They’re great,” Sharon said, hugging the woman who’d saved her daughter. “They’ll both get to go home tomorrow. I just don’t know how to thank you enough. The reward doesn’t even begin to cover it.” She wiped her eyes. “I’ll write you a check tonight before you leave.”
Doris glanced at Lynda and Jake, then let out a heavy sigh. “Oh, heck, I can’t take your money. At first, when I was lookin’ for ’em, I thought I could. I mean, they were just pictures on a flyer, ya know? But now that I know ’em, and I seen what they’ve been goin’ through . . . well, I can’t take money for it. It just doesn’t seem right. Not when Christy’s so sure that God was usin’ me to find ’em. I can’t imagine why. Not like he’s ever been able to use me before! Out of the mouths of babes. Who am I to dispute it? But no money.”
“But your car,” Sharon said. “It’s totaled. Let me at least help you . . .”
Doris raised her hand to stem the woman’s offer. “My insurance will pay for the car. It was fun while it lasted, sure. But I think I’m gonna take the insurance money and get me a little secondhand car of some kind, and use the rest of the money for a down payment on a nicer place to live. That trailer’s too far out. It’s time I did that, anyway.”
Jake hugged his mother. “Mama got a call from Oprah Winfrey a few minutes ago,” he said with a grin. “She’s going on her show next week.”
Sharon laughed. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Doris said, waving a hand as if it meant nothing. “Somethin’ about modern-day heroes. Can you imagine?”
A flock of reporters rushed to the door of the waiting room and descended on Sharon, but she pointed them to Doris. “She’s the one who found the children,” she said. “Sacrificed her Porsche to do it.”
They all surrounded her as Sharon and Tony slipped out of the room.
Downstairs, Sharon and Tony sat sipping coffee over empty plates. Neither of them had realized how ravished they had been after not eating much for several days. A feeling of utmost peace seemed to fill Tony in a way that he’d never before experienced.
“Something weird happened to me today,” he said, not able to look at Sharon as he spoke.
“What?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. I was . . . sort of . . . under the fig tree.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You prayed?”
He couldn’t meet her eyes. “I sort of made a deal with God.”
“Uh-oh,” Sharon said. “You’re not supposed to bargain with God.”
He smiled. “He took me up on it. I told him that if he brought the girls home safely, that I’d be a believer, and that I’d be the best Christian he had ever seen.”
Sharon couldn’t believe her ears. “And?”
“And I’m keeping my end of the bargain,” he said. “He did it, didn’t he? He really answered.” He swallowed and looked up at her. “See, I’ve been struggling with this. Some voice in my head keeps saying, well, he may have answered, but why’d he let it happen in the first place? And then I heard you and Jenny talking, and I realized that he really may have created good out of it. In a lot of ways. For one, I never dreamed Doris Stevens would turn down the money. That’s a miracle in itself. And this afternoon . . .” He wiped his eyes. “I saw you and Ben and Anne praying together . . . you had just put away your problems, your differences, all that baggage . . . and you went to God. That was good, wasn’t it?”
She smiled. “Yeah. It was good.”
“And it worked.” He propped his chin on his hand and looked at her with probing eyes. “God may not have caused the kidnapping. I don’t know. But I do know that he used it to knock me in the head. He used it for a lot of things.”
She smiled as tears formed in her eyes. “Then it was worth it.”
Gently, he took her hand. “Sharon, would you consider goi
ng out with me when all this is over? We were supposed to have had dinner. We never got to.”
She smiled poignantly. “A real date?”
He nodded, feeling like that awkward teenager again. “I would consider it an honor to spend as much time with you as you’re willing to spend with me.”
“I would love to,” she said, squeezing his hand. “As a matter of fact, why don’t you come to church with me Sunday?”
He nodded. “This time, there’s nothing I’d like more.”
AFTERWORD
Recently, when I was reading the book of Zechariah, something jumped out at me that I had not understood before. It was in chapter 7, when the people came to the prophet and asked him to inquire of God whether they should continue observing the fast to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem, since Jerusalem was now being rebuilt. God answered their question with a question. He asked them if they were fasting for him, or for themselves. And then he added something that seemed unrelated to their question. “Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.” The people must have frowned at one another and thought, “Did God misunderstand the question? We asked about fasting on a particular day, and he answers us with all this stuff about justice, compassion, and our hearts.”
I’ve read that before and it has gone right over my head, but this time, it shone in my face like a beacon illuminating my own sins. I go to God expecting a pat on the back for all the good deeds I’ve done, all the people I’ve helped, all the enemies I’ve forgiven, all the worship I’ve sacrificed my time to offer. And God says, “Get real, Terri. Who were you doing those things for? Me or yourself?”
It’s as if I look up at God and say, “Well, if that’s not enough, what do you want?”
And he replies, “I want your heart pure. Your good deeds amount to nothing but filthy rags if your heart isn’t pure. If worshiping me is a sacrifice, and if your good deeds are nothing more than markings on the scoresheet of your life, then you still don’t get it.”