Short Stories

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“So who was that?” Maddie asked. She had answered the phone ten minutes earlier and had passed it off to her husband when the unidentified caller asked if he was home. During the conversation, Kyle’s reactions had grown progressively more anxious and almost agitated at one point, so she was concerned.

“A character from high school named Calvin Anders. It took a few minutes for me to remember who he was. Told me he was looking forward to seeing me at the reunion next month.”

“Isn’t that a little odd?”

“I thought so. And even more odd was the fact that he claimed he wanted to make good on an old debt. I had a vague recollection of making a short term loan, but that happened so long ago that I didn’t recall either the amount or the reason. I kind of wish he’d left me in the dark on that count.”

“I really hate the thought of digging out the yearbooks, so please remember. Wasn’t Cal the homecoming king our senior year and Leslie Michaels queen?”

If someone had asked him on the street, Kyle would never have been able to remember, but Maddie’s recollection jarred a memory so he was able to confirm the facts for his wife. Maddie and Leslie had been close friends until Leslie’s father was transferred to an Indianapolis division of the company he worked for. After they moved, he wasn’t sure how long the girls had remained in contact.

“I tried to maintain ties with her for a couple of years. I know her family found a good church, she had gotten involved with the youth group there, and then she quit replying to my letters. Beyond that, I have no clue what became of her. I’m kind of hoping she makes it to the reunion so we can catch up.”

“When I was last in contact with the reunion committee, they said eighty-five percent of the class was planning to attend, so the numbers are in your favor. Weren’t she and Cal an item for most of high school?”

“Yes they were.”

“I wonder…”

“Wonder what?”

“The loan he wants to repay. Evidently, I loaned him money to pay for an abortion in 1997 when I thought I was helping to pay for the overhaul of a transmission. He gushed about what a lifesaver I had been at a critical moment in his past. He couldn’t understand why I thought he had a very sick sense of humor.”

“You think Leslie?”

“Hard to say, but they were a couple. Do you remember what any of your correspondence centered around?”

“Local news mostly. Who was getting married, who was having babies…oh boy. I was sending her emotional landmines. No wonder we lost touch.”

“I would suggest treading lightly at the reunion. Especially now,” he said, leaned over on the couch and rubbed her tummy. Her eyes suddenly got very large; she tensed up slightly and looked down at Kyle’s hand. As he watched her, he felt the look of wonder he saw on her face transfer to his own. “You’re not looking at my hand, are you?”

“I just felt movement. Like a faint little flutter, but very definite.”

“You’d better give your mom a call.”




The dinner portion of the evening was stereotypically lackluster, but the incessant joking about hair loss and weight gain made up for the pedestrian cuisine. The time capsule contained few surprises from a decade earlier, though everyone waxed nostalgic at the consumer price list from 1997 that recorded gasoline at $1.30.9 a gallon.

Leslie showed up midway through the meal. A longer than expected wait on the tarmac in Denver had put her three hours behind schedule because it made her miss a connecting flight in Oklahoma City.

“You look exhausted but good,” Kyle offered as he pulled out a chair at their table.

“I’ll take whatever compliments I can get,” Leslie said nervously and immediately engaged Maddie in conversation.

Knowing that he would only be in the way, Kyle gestured to Maddie that he would be mingling around the room for a while.

As the initial parts of their discussion progressed into deeper levels of thought, they relocated to the deck. Other than themselves, two couples and a group of three people had moved outside.

While Maddie shared some details about her work for the church in dealing with victims of domestic violence, somewhere in the parking lot a car door slammed. Leslie reacted as though the sound had come from a shotgun blast. Maddie coupled that fact with Leslie’s discomfort around Kyle and presumed both reactions to be stemming from an old trauma. Such responses were typical of the women the church counseled and sheltered.

“So, do you and Kyle have any kids?”

“Just one.”

“Boy or girl?”

“We won’t know until the next ultrasound, and even then it will depend on how cooperative the baby is.”

“Congratulations,” Leslie said and quickly turned away.

Maddie prayed that instinctive one word prayer and touched Leslie’s shoulder. Even in the subdued lighting, the tears were obvious. “Hey, what’s up?”

“I kind of wanted to discuss something with you but I didn’t want it to come out quite like this. Would you believe that a girl who could carry a pro-life sign with the rest of the church on Right to Life Sunday could also allow herself to be pressured into having an abortion? Ten years ago I killed my son. I killed an innocent baby.”

Maddie clearly remembered the beautiful, devout, loving girl Leslie had been in school and church and contrasted that image with the woman before her tortured by guilt. What could she possibly say that would help?

“I’ve confessed it a hundred times and feel no sense of forgiveness. I can’t get past this obsession over what I’ve done. And on top of that, I’ve given up talking to God about it. My heart can’t take the silence.”

Maddie wrapped her arms around Leslie and held her tight for a moment. “I doubt I have the words you need to hear, but I can remind you of something. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? How do you suppose I ended up where I am now?”

“Yes, the accepted understanding for that verse from Jeremiah is your heart will lead you away from God. I’d like to offer you a secondary interpretation. If the heart is deceitful above all things, then it is as likely to tell us things that will keep us from getting back to where we know we should be as it is to get us off track in the first place. Perhaps your heart is keeping you from God by saying things that only seem true. By listening, aren’t you honoring the sin that causes you such crippling guilt over and above the work Jesus did to lift that burden from you?”

“I suppose that’s true, but think about what I did. I took an innocent life. How can I be forgiven for that?”

A dangerous question popped into Maddie’s head and she hesitated to ask. But she’d been out on a limb before.

“Which time, the first or second?”

“What do you mean?” she asked with surprise and stepped back half a pace.

“Leslie, we’ve all participated in the death of an innocent. If killing an innocent is the worst sin that your mind can imagine, know that you have done far worse than killing your unborn child. We all had a hand in killing the only one in whom there was no sin. Our sin drove Him to the cross. And if the cross reveals our worst sin, it also reveals that that sin has been forgiven. On the cross, Jesus absorbed the power of sin so that it might not have any authority over us. If God forgives the sin that sent His son to the cross, then there is nothing you can ever do that can’t be forgiven.”

“You really think so?” Leslie asked, looking more hopeful than Maddie had yet seen her that evening.

“I know so. Don’t believe the lie that you are beyond forgiveness. I realize it can be an easy lie to believe because it feels so honest, but it denies God’s thoughts where sinners are concerned. Think about your savior’s name for a minute. Immanuel. Remind me what that name means.”

“God with us.”

“Yes. God is with us. That statement implies He’s not against us. He is on our side in this battle. He’s already shown us the lengths He’s willing to go to bring us back to Himself. In the cross, God shows us ourselves as worse than we could ever imagine. But He does that in order to leave us without any doubt that our sin has been forgiven. He answers the deepest of our psychological needs, and that is if we are to feel truly accepted, then we must know that we have been accepted at our very worst.”

“Is that the bottom line?”

“No. The bottom line is there is nothing you could ever do that will keep Jesus from loving you. That’s the point we all begin from, even if we must begin from that point a hundred times.”

Leslie slowly took a deep breath and just as slowly let it out. She looked out across the lake at the moonlight dancing on the water and said almost absentmindedly, “I remember.”

“What do you remember?”

“I remember what it felt like when forgiveness seemed so real instead of like an abstract concept that’s just beyond my grasp.”

“Ah, the silence you mentioned. I think that silence is just the sound of God being confused. When God forgives, He also forgets. So, when you ask to be forgiven for something He’s already dealt with, He’s sitting in heaven going ‘Huh? What? When?’”

Leslie laughed at the image as Maddie had hoped she would. But there was something else she desperately needed to hear from someone.

“You know, our evangelical mindset lacks a certain something that would be really useful in a situation like this. When we confess our sins, we tend to leave it at that and trust the matter has been dealt with. I think sometimes we need to hear that it has been dealt with as well.”

She placed firm hands on Leslie’s shoulders and said in the most solemn tones she could muster, “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. He has not dealt with you according to your sins nor punished you according to your iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward the woman who fears Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed your transgressions from you. Though your sins were as scarlet, they have been washed white as snow. He knows your pain. He has cried with you, longed to comfort you, and if you let Him, He will restore all the years the locusts have eaten away.”

Though the tears were undeniably real, they had a very different feel to them. For the first time in many years, they didn’t burn. “Thanks, Maddie.”

“For what?”

“For not condemning me as I thought you should.”

Maddie raised her hand and said, “Sinner saved by grace here. And as such, my mission in life is to extend that same grace to others who need it.”

“Does church still begin at 10:45?”

“As always, yes.”

“My flight isn’t until mid-afternoon on Sunday. I think maybe I’d like to attend.”

“I’m sure everyone would enjoy seeing you again.”



“Everything all right?” Kyle asked when he reconnected with Maddie fifteen minutes later.

“Oh yes. In fact, better than expected. Why?”

“You look a little puffy around the eyes.”

“Nothing in the Kingdom is ever wasted. Especially tears like these.”

“Leslie?”

“Yes. She took off for her hotel but promised she’d see us at the softball game tomorrow. She was very tired from her airport ordeal today and I don’t think she’s ready for a chance encounter with Cal. Did you see him?”

“Did I ever. He’s as self-important as I remembered and his hair is three shades darker than it was in school. It looked ridiculous with the nearly white moustache.”

“I want you to know that I like this,” she said and touched the gray at Kyle’s temples, “so stay away from the Just For Men. Did he settle matters with you?”

“All debts are repaid,” he said with a not so innocent grin.

“What have you done?”

“I informed him that I would be donating the money to a local charity. I made that decision after he mentioned he was staying at the Days Inn. I asked him to do me the favor of dropping the money off at the charity himself since he’s staying so close.”

“What charity do we support that’s located in that part of town?”

“Gift of God Ministries. I made it a sure thing he’d follow through by telling him if he delivered the check in person he could have the tax write off. And you know Adaline will give him the grand tour of the facility.”

“I can’t believe you sent him to the maternity home. I think it would be nice if you’d make sure the gift is given in memory of Josiah Michaels.”

“Is that anybody we know?”

“Only as an empty cradle,” she said, subconsciously protecting her own midsection with folded arms. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way home.”

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