Covenant Child

  Next to her, the old man held a cigarette in his lips, and the smoke almost choked me. The car turned off of the highway and took several turns. “Wake up, Eloise. We’re home.”

  I caught my breath and got my knees under me so I could rise up and look out. Home meant only one place to me, and I longed for it. I wondered if Mommy would be waiting there.

  But the house I saw was nothing like my own home, with the little flowers in the front yard and the playhouse in the back. Instead, I saw a little brick house with a dirt driveway, and nothing familiar.

  I nudged Lizzie. “Wake up,” I whispered.

  She stirred and, realizing where she was, began to cry again. “I want to go home!”

  As if offended, Eloise got out of the car, flung the back door open, and jerked both of us out. She popped our bottoms, as if that would stop our tears. We tried to hold our cries in until we got inside.

  The house smelled of dirty shoes and grit. It was dark, until Eloise turned on an old lamp in the corner of the living room. Shadows loomed around the room, monsters mocking and threatening us.

  It was hot in the house, so the woman went around opening windows. When she threw open the side door, two dogs leaped through.

  Lizzie shrieked.

  “I told you, I can’t stand that squalling,” Eloise said. “You can muzzle it right now, or I will!”

  We clung together, our eyes squeezed shut against the dogs sniffing us and the shadows stalking us and the woman yelling at us.

  Eloise kicked the dogs away. “Deke, you get them dogs out, and I’ll take care of the young’uns.”

  When Deke came back through with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, she grabbed up our hands and jerked us into the next room. It was as tiny as our daddy’s toolshed. It had only one twin bed, and barely enough room to walk around it.

  “I won’t have this crying and carrying on.” Her eyes were two bitter slits in her face. “If you can’t shut up, I have ways to teach you to.”

  Lizzie covered her mouth to muffle the sound, but she couldn’t stop the wail. “Mommmeeeeeeee!”

  The woman jerked her hand again, threw her into the closet, and closed the door. Lizzie’s screams echoed through the little house, making me shiver and gape up at Eloise in terror.

  “I’ll be good!” I backed against the wall, tightening my body against her. “I won’t cry. Lizzie will stop! Then will you take us home?”

  The woman lifted me at my waist and stormed out into the hall and back to her own bedroom, where she threw me into another closet.

  Agonizing darkness smothered me, and I screamed murderous, heart-wrenching screams that fell on deaf ears.

  And I began to despair of anyone ever rescuing me.

  TWELVE

  I picture Amanda standing alone at her father’s grave, a lone figure in black on a bright green manicured lawn, autumn trees whispering around her in blazing colors of orange, yellow, burgundy, and red.

  I imagine the inside-out grief sucking her under, her limbs feeling heavy and sluggish as she went back to the car, moving like she walked under water, with the world floating slowly and out of control around her.

  I imagine it because that is one of my own disjointed dreams. That drowning, plodding journey under treacherous waters, with no source of air or escape.

  She told us later how she went back home and sat out on the Cracker Barrel rocker on our play house porch. The sky grew dark and the stars emerged, bright and clear, against velvet black.

  The beauty and peace of it enraged her, as if it provided some mocking counterpoint to the turmoil within her.

  “Where are You?” she demanded of God. “What are You doing?”

  But there was no answer in the brilliant stars or the whispering wind.

  “Why do You hate me so much?”

  The words sucked the breath out of her, and she sat there and wept. As angry as she was at God, she did want answers. And she had always known where to find them before.

  She went into the house, tears chapping her cool face, and grabbed Jack’s Bible from the bed table. The order of worship the Sunday before his death was stuck in Isaiah, and she opened the book and pulled it out. He had folded the front page of the bulletin back, and her eyes swept over the program. She tried to remember sitting close to him, their shoulders brushing, their fingers entwined, as the pastor had preached from Isaiah 49.

  Funny, but she couldn’t remember a thing the pastor had said. That sermon hung somewhere at the back of her mind, less prominent than the tender feelings that had always pulsed through her whenever Jack was near.

  She glanced down at the open Bible, to Isaiah 49. Mechanically, she scanned the verses, until she came to verse 20.

  “The children of whom you were bereaved will yet say in your ears,

  ‘The place is too cramped for me;

  Make room for me that I may live here.’

  Then you will say in your heart,

  ‘Who has begotten these for me,

  Since I have been bereaved of my children And am barren, an exile and a wanderer?

  And who has reared these?

  Behold, I was left alone;

  From where did these come?’”

  Thus says the Lord GOD,

  “Behold, I will lift up My hand to the nations And set up My standard to the peoples;

  And they will bring your sons in their bosom,

  And your daughters will be carried on their shoulders.

  Kings will be your guardians,

  And their princesses your nurses.

  They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth

  And lick the dust of your feet;

  And you will know that I am the LORD;

  Those who hopefully wait for Me will not be put to shame.”

  She wasn’t sure what the words meant, or why she had turned to them. But they seemed to hold a promise. Was God telling her that He did care about her situation? That He was still in control?

  Was He telling her that she would get her children back, if she was just patient, and waited hopefully?

  I will not fail you or forsake you.

  Joshua 1:5, she thought, as the verse reeled through her mind. It was the first verse her parents had taught her when she was a child. Now they were gone . . .

  But that promise remained.

  No one could take that from her. Clinging to it like it was God’s own hand, she curled up under the covers and waited for morning.

  THIRTEEN

  The doorbell woke her the next morning, and Amanda realized she had slept in the dress she’d worn to her father’s funeral. A quick glance in the mirror showed her hair was tangled and disheveled, and smeared mascara darkened the circles under her eyes.

  She opened the door a few inches and saw Robert Eubanks. “I don’t want to talk about the inheritance. So unless you have news about the children—”

  “I do have news, Amanda. Please, can I come in?”

  She opened the door wider and slumped against it, and he stepped inside. “Amanda, I know you’ve been through a terrible time. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  She turned on a lamp and watched the morning shadows vanish.

  “I wanted to tell you that Eloise and Deke Krebbs filed a lawsuit this morning on behalf of the children. You’ll be served later today.”

  “Of course they did,” she said in a dull voice as she dropped onto a chair. “I told you that was why they wanted them. They smelled money all the way from Barton.”

  He sat down across from her. He was too tall for his chair, and his knees were higher than his body. His large bony hands webbed over his thighs.

  “I’m afraid you were right, but they don’t have much of a case.”

  “Just give it to them.” The words came out flat, unconcerned. “I don’t want it.”

  He leaned forward, clasping his hands. “Amanda, that money is the one negotiating tool you have. As long as it’s yours, the Krebbses’ plan won’t work. If
they don’t get something out of their custody of Lizzie and Kara, then chances are they’ll return them at some point. But if you surrender the estate to them, you may never get the girls back.”

  Amanda stared at him for a moment, turning his words over in her mind. “I probably won’t get that inheritance anyway since all these little suits have been filed against the estate.”

  “Those are groundless. None of them are a real threat. They’re just slowing the process down a little, because the money’s not accessible to you until everything is settled. But the Krebbses are a threat because the suit is on behalf of the children.”

  “What if we offered them a settlement? Make them rich in exchange for my children?”

  He considered her words for a moment, then nodded. “It’s a possibility. We’ll try it. But if they decide to go for the whole pot of gold, I strongly recommend that you fight them. I know you don’t want to. I realize you don’t have the energy or inclination. But it’s critical that you fight.”

  When I think what she went through, how everything she loved had been taken from her, I can imagine how impossible those words must have sounded. “I don’t know if I have a fight in me. Not over money, anyway. It won’t bring my family back. No amount of money will do that.”

  He sighed. “Amanda, this estate is my last official job before I retire from the firm I’ve worked for most of my life. I want to see that it’s taken care of. Out of respect for your husband, I want to fight for you and make sure that the estate eventually passes to his children. I’m a Christian, as I know you and Jack were. Since the Holbrookes’ deaths, the company’s leadership has taken it down some roads that would make Paul roll over in his grave. I would love nothing better than to see you get at the helm of that company to root out that evil. The current leadership will run it into the ground. Someone of character needs to be in charge.”

  She felt a sick churning in her stomach . . . how long had it been since she’d eaten? “I worked as a paralegal before I met Jack,” she said. “I don’t know anything about running a megacorporation.”

  “I believe that you’re the one God wants there.” He said it like a prophet proclaiming the truth. “He picked a shepherd boy to be king of Israel. Why is it so hard to believe that He could pick you to run HolCorp?”

  “God hasn’t picked me for anything! The whole idea is crazy. There’s no purpose to any of this.”

  “I believe you’re wrong. Someday those children will grow up, and they deserve to have what is rightfully theirs. You may have lost control over their youth, but you can protect their future. You might be the only one who cares enough about them to do that.”

  She got up and went to the window, looked out on the backyard. Memories played through her mind like the tattered photographs I’ve seen. “Why do you have so much faith in me? I can’t even keep the most basic, simple promise! I promised my husband I would take care of Lizzie and Kara for the rest of my life. That they would be my first earthly priority. He died believing I would do that.”

  “You can still keep that promise, Amanda. You’ve lost touch with them for now, but someday they’ll be back in your life. You can fight for this estate and keep Eloise and Deke Krebbs from getting it, or the people who are running the company from changing it entirely. Preserving HolCorp and the estate for the girls would be a way to keep your promise.”

  She stared at the window sill, wishing there were answers there. How could she juggle the problems of a billion-dollar corporation, when she couldn’t even remember to shower in the morning?

  But if it was a way to keep her promise . . . to take care of the girls in the best way she could . . . then maybe this was her obligation.

  She drew in a deep, cleansing breath, but it didn’t restore her strength. “All right. I’ll fight.”

  He smiled then, the first time she had seen that since she’d met him. “You’ve made my day.”

  FOURTEEN

  Just a few days into our stay with the Krebbses, Lizzie and I had the same dream. Hands groped and grabbed, and I clung tightly to something I couldn’t see. I was sure those clawing hands belonged to death, the same death that had taken my daddy. If it wasn’t death, it hurt my heart just the same.

  I clung with all the strength of my arms and legs, but those pulling hands were winning, prying me away, fighting to take me.

  My own screams echoed through my head . . .

  I heard Lizzie hit the floor and I jolted awake. I was soaked in sweat and urine and tears. Darkness blinded me, and I didn’t know where I was, but I reached for her in a desperate struggle to save her from those hands.

  “I’m scared!” She was screaming. “The hands . . . I want to go home!” I came to my senses as I realized that Eloise and Deke might wake up. “Shhh. They’ll wake up and come.”

  “They’re not here,” Lizzie said. “I heard them leaving.”

  “We’re by ourselves?”

  “Yeah, but I’m glad.”

  Lizzie pulled away from me and got up then and stood on her toes to turn on the light. It came on with blazing intensity, squinting my eyes. Lizzie’s hair was rumpled and tangled, and her face was pink on one side.

  We got brave and went into the living room and sat on the couch, trying to calm ourselves with Gunsmoke reruns.

  We both dozed on the couch to the comfort of the TV voices.

  The night had given way to daylight when I heard the car tires crunching the gravel driveway.

  I got up and looked out the window. Deke and Eloise Krebbs were getting out of their car, staggering toward the house, looking as if they’d been in a fight.

  “Come on, Lizzie, we have to go to bed!”

  Lizzie woke up, groggy, and slid off the couch.

  “Hurry! They’re coming.”

  Before I could get her to move out of her sleepy stupor, the door burst open and Eloise and Deke marched in.

  “What are you doing up?” Eloise bellowed. “It’s five-thirty in the morning.”

  “We got scared,” Lizzie whispered.

  “Go back to sleep,” Eloise ordered. “I ain’t got any patience for you today.”

  We hurried back to our room and huddled on the bed together, listening as Eloise ranted in the next room. “I told you tonight wasn’t a good night, but no, you had to keep on putting the money down. What’s the matter with you, Deke?”

  “I’ll borrow some tomorrow. There ain’t a bank in the area that wouldn’t give me money, knowing that I’ve got the Billion Dollar Babies. We’ll borrow the money and win every bit of it back tomorrow night. You just mark my word.”

  I fell asleep curled up with Lizzie, and the hands came back, groping and clawing and pulling . . . tormenting my rest and pumping fear through my veins like life itself.

  I wondered if the hands were those of that monster, death, or if they were the angels who had taken my daddy. As much as I wanted to be with him or Amanda, I feared them. I began to hate those angels we used to lie in the grass and look for, the ones we dressed up like, the ones who, in my dreams, smelled and sounded like Deke and Eloise Krebbs.

  FIFTEEN

  Lizzie and I decided that we would have to find our own way home and we thought we had a plan. There were woods behind the Krebbses’ house . . . and there were woods behind our house at home.

  To our three-year-old minds, we figured they were the same woods and that, if we entered them, we would come out in our own backyard.

  It took us days to get the courage. We were afraid of those oppressive trees and the bushes that grabbed and scratched and the tangled branches and vines. But we didn’t see another way.

  While Eloise and Deke slept off another casino night, we held hands and ventured into that frightening place . . . but we found it less frightening than the house where our grandparents held us hostage.

  Birds crowed overhead, and animals made noises from their hiding places.We had no reference point for the things around us, except for Disney books and fairy tales in which
trees spoke and birds smiled and Bambi romped.

  Our fear soon lifted as we went deep enough into the trees to lose sight of the Krebbses’ house. We walked and walked, and branches and thorn-bushes tore at our legs. The sounds of the animals around us grew more hostile.

  I remember stumbling through those woods, searching for the opening that would take us to the other side—only there was no opening. Finally I began to wonder if there really was another side.

  I sat down in a bed of muddy leaves and started to cry, and Lizzie stood helplessly over me.

  “Where is Mommy?”

  Lizzie’s voice was flat, resolute. “They said she was dead like Daddy.”

  “I want to go home.” My wail was high-pitched and frightened, wafting over the trees and hushing the forest sounds.

  Lizzie sat down next to me, weary and dirty, and put her arm across my shoulders. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she whispered, echoing Amanda’s comforting chant.

  And then we heard it. A man’s voice, yelling from some distance away.

  We got to our feet, our grimy, tear-streaked faces lighting up with hope. I’m not sure what we’d expected—our daddy, back with a team of angels to whisk us off with him; or Grandpa Buzz and Mommy, ready to take us home.

  But the man who made his way to us was gruff and scowling. He had dark, beady eyes, and his mouth was a straight slash across his face. He wore a thin, V-neck T-shirt and mud-covered jeans, and he carried a big blade in his hands, with which he whacked at the brush to form his path.

  He stopped when he got to us and yelled, “What in the dog dickens?”

  We got up and started to run away, but he dropped his blade and grabbed us both. Our screams rose to shriek level. “How in blazes did you get out here?” he yelled over our cries. “You those young’uns living with the Krebbses? They said they was red-haired twins. The Billion Dollar Babies.”

  We kept fighting to break away, but he put an arm around each of our waists and lifted us like we were sacks of potatoes.