Word Weld

I sat down as she seated herself across from me. She was actually nervous. Maybe I was a little bit too. Candice was beautiful that night, having done her hair with curls, and I had on my good blazer and a black tee underneath it. We sat at a little booth at Callas’, a nice little place a little bit from my house, but with good food and a warm atmosphere. It was Greek themed and somewhat romantic, especially at night.  As I sat down across from her, Candice looked at me bashfully, but her smile was sweet. The waitress soon arrived and took our drink order.

“Don’t you think this is a little backward?” she said at last when the waitress had gone.

“Backward?” I was too busy looking at her beautiful face to actually think about what she was saying.

“You know,” she tilted her head. “Don’t you think it’s kind of putting the cart before the horse? After all, here we are, having our first date when we’ve been ‘married’ for a whole day.”

Strangely, she was not being sarcastic−she was actually tickled. Though I had only been “married” to her for a day, I could tell by this time.

“If it had been up to me, Candice, we’d have courted years ago. God just has a real sense of humor about these kinds of things. I couldn’t have guessed it would be like this, or that I would even know you at all.”

She frowned in her eyes, but she was still smiling as she went on.

“I feel so… free, Shay. I mean, I’ve been fighting against this situation since last night. I’ve been feeling trapped and helpless, and I’ve been wretched to you and Kyle in the process. Now I just have to think about what I’ve lost.”

“What do you mean?” I inquired.

“I guess what I mean is that I’ve started to think about what all I’ve lost was actually worth. I had a good, well-paying job that I enjoyed, and I had a nice house that was way too big for me, and I had a sports car, and just about everything a ‘successful’ woman wants in this world. But successful women, I realize, aren’t the happiest women. I’m happier now–in this moment–than I ever was in the years before, yet I’m also the weakest and most vulnerable I’ve ever been, not to mention poor as a church mouse. I’m not lonely anymore, for one thing. I guess that’s riches enough. You and Kyle are so loveable.”

“I’ll take that to be a compliment,” I winked at her.

“Please do, Shay,” she was looking happier every moment, and prettier too. I think the two were connected. “I don’t mind pretending to be married to you anymore. I look forward to helping you bring up Kyle, too. He’s such a funny boy!”

“He is different, that’s for sure,” I was thinking about his love of coffee, among other things. Maybe he wasn’t so average after all, or maybe he just was average in all the normal things. “I know we’ve had our problems, Candice, but none of it makes me think any less of you. In a lot of ways I can’t blame you, with all you’ve been through.”

“But I can’t let that destroy me,” Candice leaned back. “I’ve gone through a lot, yes. I’ve lost everything in just a few days, and I’ve had to change my way of life completely, but Shay, I can’t lose sight of what I said that first night, and what you reminded me of yesterday. I should be thankful, because things could be worse. I could be dead right now. I have to remember that to take it out on you would be so thankless that it’s just evil and wrong. Being unthankful is right up there with the worst of sins.”

Suddenly my brain switched gears. It was because of that last sentence. I had heard that before somewhere. I couldn’t remember, but I figured it would come to me. For the rest of the time, however, my brain had a small piece devoted to remembering why that struck me as odd. The waitress returned to take our order during the lull.

“Shay,” she continued, “you’ve saved my life, risking your own, and because of that I owe you something I can’t repay. I don’t even think marrying you for real would be enough to make us even. I wonder if risking my life for you would make us even. I think that saving someone’s life is something that stands alone, and can’t be touched by efforts to ‘settle the score.’ It shows love like nothing else, and I don’t forget that.”

Again! Something in my little dedicated piece of brain lit up, and I realized that she had said something again that sounded very familiar. I pressed against the fog in my head until finally that little piece of brain struck gold and I almost gasped. Those things she had said… they were Bible verses, paraphrased Bible verses! Staring right into her now green eyes, I recited what I knew,

“’For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents… unthankful…’”

“What?” she looked confused.

“2 Timothy, I think,” I squinted. “That’s what you were saying earlier, about thanklessness being among the worst sins.”

To my great interest, she looked suddenly afraid, like I had hit on something that even she did not know she had done and was ashamed of. I leaned forward and pressed the issue.

“’Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ That’s from the Gospel of John.”

Candice continued to look afraid and fell silent. I don’t know why, but I put the pieces together and just blurted out,

“I saw you crying in church this morning.”

She stared at me intently, as if caught in some crime. I could see the belligerence of before welling up in her features, and her cheeks flushed with anger. But as she sat in stony silence, the fury suddenly broke like a fever and she sighed heavily.

“All right, Shay, all right,” she said, running her hands through her hair. “You want to know the truth, right? Well, this is the truth. My mother was a Christian, a strong Christian, who took her children to church every Sunday. My father, however, was an unprincipled atheist. My mother tried to convert him for years, but he was very hard hearted. She was his second wife, and he started to hate her, just as his first wife, but for different reasons, and divorced her too. His first wife was Sarah’s mother, so we’re actually half-sisters. When Father became ill at the age of 48 due to heavy drinking, smoking, and general neglect of his body, Sarah’s mother obtained custody of her from the courts. She was also a God-hater and taught Sarah to be one too, driving out any influence my mother had on her.  Because I was my mother’s daughter I was left out of the will, since he then hated her. However, after she died in the nursing home, and Father began to approach death, as he is now, he began to think about God, and regret the things he did to my mother and the way he treated me. He wanted to make a new will, but Sarah confused the process.”

“So are you saved then, Candice?” I asked her pointedly.

“Though my mother took me to church, taught me the Bible, and tried many times, even getting me to pray meaningless prayers, I was never saved, because I could not believe in a being that would create a world of such terrible unhappiness. My sister was cruel to me; my father hated me and my mother. My family was not only fractured, it was fractured in two places, since my father had a previous wife to think about. I never knew a loving father, and I never had a friend. My mother worked herself nearly to death to pay for my education so that I could have a future outside of my father’s will. To me, God never did anything for my mother, except bring her hardship after hardship.”

“But Candice,” I pleaded, “hard times are supposed to draw you closer to Him, not drive you further away. You have to come to a point where you can trust Him without doubt, and then you’ll begin to see the good in what’s happening.”

“My mother, if anyone ever did, deserved God’s care, but she got none,” I could hear and see the bitterness that lived inside her. It was a fortress that she had built stone by stone, with stones handed to her by the Devil himself. “She never realized her dreams. She never even saw her daughter come into her own and see that her labor was worth something.”

“She knows now, Candice. And now she has more than she could ever have had on this miserable world, a world made miserable by the sin of men like your father. And how has God worked in your life? He’s saved your life from certain death! How likely was it that some guy you don’t know at all would pop out from some trash cans in a deserted alley just the instant before you bit the dust? And what about your mother? Your mother’s testimony planted a seed that your father may yet accept before he dies. I don’t want you to perish one day, when the answer was so very close by. I care, Candice.”

“I know, Shay,” she did not seem stubborn now. “I just don’t think I’m ready yet. I don’t think God is reaching out to me anymore. I don’t know if He ever will. I think I’ve sinned the unpardonable sin, and I’m lost forever.”

“Anyone who still has even the slightest desire to be saved can be,” I replied. “Only those who have hardened their hearts beyond any desire to come to him are unpardonable.  They’re the ones who condemn themselves. But I’ll pray for you, Candice, I really will.”

She smiled, and said simply,

“Thanks, Shay.”

“I know God is still reaching out to you, Candice, I know it.”

We ate leisurely, there being no rush to get home for Kyle’s sake, as he was at his friend’s house. It was a popular restaurant and with good reason. The food was excellent! I hadn’t been there very much, but I was always impressed. It wasn’t the cheapest place, either. We chatted a little about our likes, dislikes, and convictions until we were pretty much convinced that apart from her not being saved, we were meant for each other. That was when her face fell.

“I really think doctors just make up what’s supposed to give you cancer, you know?” I was saying as I stopped and saw her face, now dead serious, staring past my head. Carefully I turned, as if to cough, and peered sideways. My cough became rather prolonged, as did my gaze. There, in a nearby booth, a man was being seated. He had a bandaged face, still heavily wounded, but was otherwise dressed impeccably. I almost said it out loud… Willard!

I turned back to face my date, my brain racing, along with my heart. Candice wisely remained causal, but stared at him as long as he didn’t look in our direction. When I had looked, he had been getting a drink as he seated his large frame.

“What’s going on?” I hissed.

“He’s getting his drink,” she said mechanically, her eyes fixed on him.

“Hey!” I touched her hand, bringing her out of it. “Don’t stare too long or he’ll notice you.”

I had been right, evidently, by the way she immediately tried to act casual and took a drink so as to obscure part of her face with the glass. I coughed again, and caught a glimpse of Willard, a truly evil look on his face, scanning the crowd, having sensed someone staring at him.

That was when another man walked up to him and drew his attention. He was pale, deathly so, and dressed in an old-fashioned suit and tie, over which was a heavy leather trench coat that made his head seem small. His hair and thin mustache were white as milk, and his face was withered and scarred, but he could not have been over forty-five.

I turned back to see Candice scooting herself out of the booth.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I whispered sharply.

“I have to know who that other man is,” she told me, stopping for a moment.

“Then let me go,” I suggested. “He’ll recognize you!”

“Of the two of us, I think I’m the least likely to be recognized,” she replied dryly, running her hand through her black hair in a pained manner.

To try to stop her further would have looked suspicious, so I sat and looked around, catching glimpses of the two men, and Candice standing in a doorway nearby, pretending to be trying to make a call on the cell phone I got for her. For a few minutes my heart raced as fast as my mind, wondering if Willard would catch a fatal look and recognize her.

She stood there for some time while the two men conversed in low tones. I kept glancing over also, and at one point I saw the Pale Man reach over and grip Willard by the wrist. I frowned as they held this position for a few moments, and then the Pale Man released Willard and they both sat back, as if momentarily exhausted. Then, with a parting nod, the Pale Man rose and left, and his path took him directly by where Candice was standing. She had been staring at her phone, trying to look unassuming while she listened for more conversation, and as the Pale Man had given Willard no parting word, she had not noticed him leaving. It was just as he was passing her in the doorway that she noticed the silence was unusually long, and glanced up. I cringed, for she was immediately startled, for the man she thought was in the seat nearby was now right in front of her, and he was tall and imposing. Candice looked like she came off the floor slightly, breathed in a sharp gasp, and actually fell back against the door frame, there being no door in the opening. Her phone escaped from her hand and landed on the floor in front of her.

Needless to say, at this close range, her reaction was painfully obvious. The Pale Man stopped abruptly and stared at her. Willard, to my relief, was preoccupied with his bandages and wounds, and hadn’t noticed anything. The Pale Man was concern enough, though.  For some moments he and Candice stared at each other, until finally stillness was shattered in a big way. The spell was broken by a young blonde woman in very high white heels and a sky blue and pale yellow dress. I understood her to be a manager of some kind, and she was carrying a thick stack of tall menus. We had seen her bustling about the place for some time, and couldn’t help but notice her. She was bubbly and full of smiles, and chatted liberally with all of the guests.

“Oh, goodness!” she said brightly (and loud enough that I could hear easily), pausing before the interlocked pair in the doorway. She immediately knelt down with all the difficulty her attire presented, and picked up Candice’s phone. “You don’t want to lose this! You know every night we end up with a few of these in the podium up front! There’s one in there that’s probably six years old, would you believe it? Nobody came back to claim it, and everyone here just keeps forgetting to throw it out!”

The blonde laughed, and her laughter was like magic for it thawed Candice immediately, and she took the phone with a smile, even looking shyly back to the Pale Man and apologizing. He responded with a reluctant nod, then continued on, ignoring the young manager’s farewell. Upon looking back to Candice, the manager’s smile took on a different quality. She said something to Candice in a lower voice, exchanged a few words with her, and then to my interest walked with her back to our table.

“Hi!” the manager’s infectious smile exploded again as she saw me waiting to receive Candice next to me. “My name’s Winter! I just happened to see Candice drop her phone and now she seems a little shaky. I guess she got a bit of a fright from that gentleman back there. If I had been concentrating and looked up and seen someone like that right in front of me, I probably wouldn’t fit back into my skin either!”

“You know Candice?” I gave her a puzzled eye.

“I know her now,” Winter explained. “I like to be on a first name basis with all of our regular customers.”

“We’re not regular customers,” I said, then felt a bit awkward. “Well, I mean, we aren’t yet… we could be, if we like it enough… not that we, you know, don’t like it so far…”

Her lips closed but she gave me a sideways glance, with her hands on her hips, and winked at me as she said, “You’re regulars.”

“Okay,” I consented, smiling myself now, in spite of the chilling situation we had both endured. “My name’s Shay.”

“Well, Shay… and Candice, let me know if you need anything at all, ok?” she put a friendly hand on Candice’s shoulder and added, “And if you need me to bring you a little glass of wine, just to help you relax after that scare, it’s on the house.”

“Oh, well–” she said shakily.

“I think that would be great, Winter,” I interrupted. “Thanks so much. You’re a lifesaver!”

“It’s no problem,” Winter replied. “Here at Callas’, hospitality is our philosophy!”

Then she leaned down again and winked, “That’s a Greek pun.”

Winter left, and Candice was seated on the same side of the table as me, so that we were both facing away from Willard. Winter had done her a lot of good, but she was shaking a little, her hands clammy and sweat glistening above her eyebrows and upper lip. I sat holding her tightly for some time, until at long last she had settled down enough to talk.

“What did they say?” I whispered.

“I didn’t understand most of it,” she frowned. “They talked about something called ‘rising,’ and a man named ‘Percy.’ I also got the distinct impression that the Pale Man was somehow Willard’s superior. In fact, it seemed like even Sarah might be beholden to him. He never said his name, but he spoke with a heavy accent–German, I think. I’m scared, Shay. That man’s face… I’ll never forget it. There was something not right about him.”

I held her hands. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Candice.”

“And what if they find us? They’ll kill you and Kyle too… oh… I couldn’t bear it!”

“They aren’t going to find us,” I held her face in my hands. “The Shade will stop Sarah, and this Pale Man too; we just have to be patient.”

“What are the chances of them being here tonight, on our first night out?” she started to calm down, and I released her.

“I think that’s the most uncanny thing I’ve ever seen,” I admitted. “Come on, I’ll buy you dessert.”

The rest of the night I spent trying to calm her down. My efforts were partially successful, but the wine Winter brought helped more. It seemed everything in our lives was driving us together. I was beginning to wonder where the plan of God was taking us. I could only trust that He was in control and knew what He was doing. What was the Shade doing?

When we returned home that night, it was just the two of us in the house, since Kyle was staying overnight. It had been very kind of his friend’s parents to let him stay over on such short notice, but they were good Christian people. That being said, I was still impressed.

I knew Candice would be tired from the evening, so I suggested she go to bed.

“What about you?” she asked, unexpectedly. “Are you going to bed too?”

“No,” I said after a moment. “I’ll stay up a little while.”

She was hesitant, then turned, saying “Goodnight” as she left.

I had my reasons for staying up. For one, I wanted her to feel safer, since she was afraid of Sarah’s henchmen, and with good reason. The other thing was more mundane: I wanted to check my email. Even so, I suspected checking my email would not be so very mundane. And, just as I suspected, amongst the various messages was one entitled “Beyond a Shadow.”

The message said only this:

“Meet me when you get this tonight by the clock in Orchard Square. ‘Insure’ yourself.”

Orchard Square was a few miles away, not as far as last time. I quickly prepared, hoping that this time we would be rid of Sarah’s wiles once and for all. Yet, there was something small inside me that wished this would not end, fearing that all would go back to normal. Somehow this life was better than the one I had lived, and it wasn’t because of the Shade.

In order to prepare properly I had to go into my bedroom to get my gun. Thus, after wasting some time on the computer, I sneaked down the hall to my bedroom and listened at the door. Hearing nothing, I turned the handle. If it had been locked, I would have been able to open it, but it was not. Did she forget again, or did she trust me that much? Into the room I peered, and the dim shaft of light from the door illuminated the foot of the bed. I craned my neck around the door and saw Candice, peacefully resting underneath the covers. She had on white pajamas I had bought for her.

Taking advantage, I made my way over to the dresser and pulled the drawer out, wincing at the short, dull squeak that accompanied. I listened, but heard nothing, and glancing over my shoulder, found her still asleep. With the drawer open, I lifted some clothes and pulled out the black case that held my revolver. I checked the cylinder to make sure it was clean and clear and then loaded it. I wondered why I didn’t just keep it loaded all the time, since it took time to shove the bullets into the slots.

As I turned to leave, however, I started, staring right into her worried eyes. She did not look sleepy at all, but sat up in the bed, watching me.

“Candice,” I went over to her and sat on the bed, “what are you doing still awake?”

“I was frightened when I heard the door open, so I pretended to be asleep,” she replied. I took her hand in mine. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

“I’ll be back before morning,” I assured her, and tears came to her eyes. Then she threw herself at me and hugged me tightly, sobbing quietly.

“It’s okay,” I said soothingly, rubbing the base of her neck. “Hey, you’ll be safe. No one knows you live here, not even the neighbors yet.”

Yet, for all my soothing, she did not seem comforted. Then she sobbed, “Be safe…”

That was when I realized the tears were not for her.