82Author's Note: Forgiveness is… a decision to let the past be what it was, to leave it as is, imperfect and not what we wish it had been. [It allows us] to be with the other person without our feelings about the past in the way of what's happening now. … We stop employing the present moment to correct, vindicate, validate, or punish the past. We show up, perhaps forever changed as a result of the past, but nonetheless with eyes, ears, and a heart that are available to right now, and what's possible right now. –Rev. Nancy Colier, LCSW
Disclaimer: I don't own any of this, except in the sense that love is ownership.
Now:
Reverend Stacey answered his door himself. "Mrs. Barkley," he greeted her in surprise. "Is there a meeting today?"
"No." She smiled, but it was with her lips, rather with her eyes. "I need to speak to you about my son."
She wasn't acting like herself, the reverend thought. What can have happened?
He brought her a cup of tea, and set it down on the low table next to her chair.
Her attention, which had been focused on the bit of dress she was pleating in her lap, focused instead on the teacup. "Is this—"
"—your cup? It is," he confirmed, with a chuckle.
She blushed, "I'm sorry, that was rude."
"Not at all. They're fine dishes, and I appreciate them."
She'd given them away, out of charity, and because too many had been broken to serve her large family with matching cups and plates. She'd bought new ones. She'd been surprised to see the cup, that was all. She hadn't meant to embarrass him.
He was not embarrassed. "A gift blesses both the one who gives, and the one who receives."
"Yes, of course." Her gaze fell back to her lap, and her restless gloved fingers took up a bit of fabric again.
"You wanted to discuss your son," the man of God reminded her.
"Yes." She didn't look up.
"Which one?" though he knew already. If she'd meant Nick or Eugene or Jarrod, she'd have said the name. Only one of her sons was treated with a possessiveness that denied his very identity.
She looked up at him, startled. "Heath."
"Of course," Reverend Stacey said, since she had not, though it was in her eyes. Her cup. Her son.
They had discussed Heath, who he was, and his relationship to the family, soon after the young man arrived in the valley. The reverend waited, but she said no more. One corner of his mouth quirked up. "Heath is your son," he finally prompted. "And?"
The hazel eyes that rose again to meet his own were filled with tears. "And I've lost him."
The fire focused Heath's mind on the present wonderfully. Whatever had happened at Carterson, they needed to put out this fire. He turned his horse's head and raced, yelling, back to the timber camp.
"What did Heath say?" Reverend Stacey asked, when she'd finished her story.
Victoria was perplexed. "He hasn't said anything. That's the problem."
The preacher shook his head. "No, I mean at the beginning, before you sent him away with his enemies."
She winced.
"Is that wrong?" he asked.
"No, but…"
"But what?"
"Aren't we supposed to love our enemies?"
The minister laughed.
She began to get angry.
He saw it. "Wait, Mrs. Barkley. Of course, we're taught that… but, it's a difficult philosophy to put into practice. We strive to follow Christ's teachings, but… we often fail."
"Does that mean we shouldn't try?" she demanded.
This was more like what he was used to. From what she'd told him, she'd behaved towards her new 'son' in a way that had been tremendously cruel, yet her tears had unnerved him, and he was glad to see her back in fighting form.
"No, it doesn't, but will all due respect, Mrs. Barkley, you've pushed your son away, forced him into the arms of his enemy, and now you blame him for being gone?"
"It wasn't like that," she objected.
"What was it like?"
"It—" she stopped, confused.
"What did he say?" Reverend Stacey repeated.
She was silent. Her jaw worked.
"Was he silent?"
"No."
"Did you even listen to him?"
"He said that Matt was like Wirtz at Andersonville and that we didn't understand, but I do—"
"You understand what it's like to be in a prison camp?" Reverend Stacey asked sharply.
Victoria was taken aback by the abrupt change in tone. Then it dawned on her. "Rev. Stacey," she began, "Were you—"
"You do NOT know what was like to be in one of those camps," he snapped.
"But you do."
His sigh seemed to rise from the bowels of the earth. "I do, indeed." He blew out a breath, to shake off the demons of his own past. "Your son is a loving man, Mrs. Barkley. If he's lost, he'll find himself. Just trust him a little more, and all will be well."
Satan was a good ally in dealing with fire, Heath thought. The nitro should work. With luck, setting it would not be their final act.
Gil Condon popped up one last time like the devil at prayers, but he put the tube of nitroglycerine back in the case when Heath told him to.
Then a fist came towards him and the hot, flaming world went black.
The pain was so intense he couldn't tell where it was coming from. He moaned.
"Heath," Mother said. "How do you feel?"
He tried to open his eyes. When had she arrived in camp? Heath was both relieved and worried. "Mother?" he croaked.
She sighed. "If you insist."
God, it hurt! Between her anger and disappointment, and his wrecked body, he was about finished.
"What'll it be, boyo? You decide."
Heath would have blinked if his eyes hadn't been glued shut.
Pat could not be here. Pat was dead.
And good riddance.
Heath, though, was still alive, though he fought to get a breath, and could barely force his eyes open. It felt like he'd breathed in a blanket and rolled his eyeballs in sand. He could manage only shallow breaths, and those only with great effort, one at a time.
He managed to open a crack between his eyelids. Through a film of pink tears, he could just make out the blond woman at his bedside.
"I love you," he told her. His voice didn't even sound like his own, but he'd needed to say it, even though she was angry that he'd failed her.
Mother frowned. "If I tell you I love you, will you promise not to die? My husband would never forgive himself."
"I'm sorry," Cinda said.
Heath almost choked on his food in his surprise. "How's that, Mrs. Bentell?"
"You're not an animal. None of you were. You were men, who were treated like animals."
He bent his head back over his plate, forked another bite of stew.
"Aren't you going to say anything," she demanded.
Incredibly, laughter bubbled up inside him. "Not an animal?" he teased. "I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
"I'm glad you're not deadly, Barkley," Matt Bentell congratulated Heath, in his inimitable way. "Are you still going home?"
Heath didn't know what he was going to say until he said it. "As long as I'm here, we might as well finish the flume."
In a surprisingly short time, fall had arrived, and the flume was done. The Bentells accompanied Heath home for a celebration.
After the festivities, Heath pulled Victoria aside. He looked grim and serious. "Mother, I have to tell you something."
She waited, silent, remembering that Reverend Stacey had told her to listen.
"I lied to you. I told you I would do anything for you, but that isn't true. And the next time you take the part of one of my enemies, I'm leaving—"
She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off.
"—and I'm not coming back to the house until they're gone."
Until they're gone? Victoria felt almost lightheaded with relief.
"No more forgiving the unforgivable," Heath warned. "I will hate whoever I want to hate."
"Whomever," his mother corrected automatically.
"Whomever." He accepted the correction without offense.
"Okay," she agreed, smiling. "You hate anyone you want to, Heath. You'll still be my son, and I'll still love you, no matter whatever."
His outgoing breath was half a chuckle. "No matter whatever," he repeated thoughtfully, then, "I'll still love you, too, Mother."
