Darkness Before Dawn (4 page)

“As we consider his death,” Brooks began, “we can now fully realize there was no finer
young leader in this community than Steven Richards. He meant so much to this church.
An active choir member, the leader of our high school Sunday school department, and
of course, a tremendous witness to all of our members through his devotion to the
wife he now leaves behind.”

The preacher’s next words were equally glowing as he listed all of Steve’s great accomplishments
from Eagle Scout to trusted employee. He told several funny tales that captured Steve’s
sense of humor. He followed those with serious narrative, presenting example after
example of his incredible character. But to Meg those words and the stories rang hollow
now. They offered no comfort at all. Food had no taste, the wind no chill, the sun
no shine, sleep offered no refuge, and words, even those praising the man she loved,
meant nothing! She just wanted the words to end. Finally, after thirty long minutes,
Brooks seemed to be coming to the real point he wanted the congregation to hear.

“I don’t understand why this tragic accident happened, nor, I am sure, does anyone.
God does not let us know all the mysteries that are a part of His world, but we can
gain true inspiration and insight from Steven’s short life and feel true joy knowing
that he is now happy with the Master in heaven.”

Meg couldn’t help it. As soon as Brooks uttered those words she just had to shake
her head. Mysteries of His world! Yeah, that was it. Why question the mysteries, just
accept them. She’d heard that for two days. She wasn’t going to fall into the trap.
She would never accept this. This wasn’t right and it had
nothing to do with God’s love. And then, Brooks delivered the clincher.

“You have to trust in the Lord and something good will come out of this.”

He just had to toss it out there—that all-encompassing line she had heard from lots
of family and friends over the past two days. Her mom was the worst. She kept saying
it over and over again. And now, Brooks had fallen into that trap as well. Trust in
the Lord and something good will come out of this. Well, if Meg managed to be good,
Santa would come visit in nine months, too. Every child in the world knew that and
every adult used it to keep those children in line. Something good coming out of this
was a joke. She was alone. The love of her life had died. It might have been Steve’s
mangled body in the gray coffin, but she was in there, too. And when they buried him,
they would be burying the part of her that could feel and experience love. She knew
that as well as she knew Steve would never again take a breath or say a word. And
yet the preacher kept talking as if there could be some kind of opportunity created
by Steve’s death. What kind of opportunity? What could anyone gain from this? Where
was the good?

“For even though the body of Steven Richards has died,” Brooks droned on, “we know
that Steven accepted Jesus as his savior, and as is promised in the Bible, a believer
in our Lord will be safe from death and can be sure that his soul will find everlasting
life with Jesus in heaven.”

Heaven! Meg couldn’t make a cell call to there. There was no iPhone app for that.
She couldn’t talk to Steve or be held in his arms at his new address. So his being
there brought no comfort at all. It didn’t stop her pain and didn’t fill the void
in her life.

Meg’s eyes left Brooks and went to those filling the church. Many were nodding, a
few were whispering amen, but they all
looked sad; some were even visibly hurting. It was as if they had each been kicked
in the teeth. The more she looked around the more she realized that pain hung over
the service like a violent summer storm. As she took it all in, Meg’s aching turned
into rage. How could this be called a Christian service when it put so many people
through such great anguish? Where was the love in all of this? Better yet, where was
the saving grace?

“So, Meg,” the pastor’s mentioning her name suddenly jarred her out of her raging
fog and refocused her eyes on the pulpit. What she heard turned her stomach more than
soothed her spirit.

“Even though this time must be very hard for you, try to remember that Steven embraced
a mission and a life beyond this one. In fact, he had a mission and a life greater
than any we can begin to realize. He had been chosen by God to live and his job is
finished, and he is now in a better place than we who are left. Thank you, God, for
this man and what his life stood for. Now, let us pray.”

Yep, the old mystery angle again. If you don’t have an answer for something, then
trot it out and hook it to the it-must-have-been-his-time theory. It might work for
some, but not for Meg and not today.

Meg tuned out Brooks’s prayer. While all other heads in the auditorium were bowed,
her eyes remained fixed on the closed coffin. She’d shed no tears since the ones that
had fallen in the hospital parking lot and there would be none coming today. Not even
the sight of that cold, gray coffin could open her heart. She was too angry to cry
and ached to move to a place where she could fully vent.

When this funeral ended, she silently vowed, she’d be walking out of this church for
the last time. It couldn’t happen soon enough. After the final words were said and
they lowered Steve into the ground and covered the casket with dirt, Meg would
shake a few hands, accept a few hugs, and even mouth a few prayers, but only for the
moment because the mask would soon come off. God had His chance to prove His love
and He had not proved worthy of hers.

As Brooks said his final amen and the congregation rose to watch the coffin rolled
out of the church, the emotion Meg felt centered not on loss but rage. Before this
day ended, she vowed that someone would feel her wrath. All she needed now was a human
target.

O
H
, M
EG
, I
THOUGHT THE
R
EVEREND
B
ROOKS GAVE US SUCH A MEANING
ful message today. Didn’t you?”

Meg glanced over at her mother. Barbara Hankins was short, auburn-haired, and a bit
chubby. Her fair, round cheeks caused her dark brown eyes to appear larger than they
were. She was dressed in a black suit and pumps. She was the stereotypical image of
a president of a book review club and she just happened to be filling that role this
year.

“I thought Steve’s parents handled it very well. It’s a shame that they live so far
away. I know that they could be such a comfort to you during this time. I mean, all
things considered, what a beautiful service! It really did Steve proud. I know he
would have liked it. I just wish your sister Terri could have been here. She just
couldn’t make connections from overseas. She would have loved the service and been
touched by it. Do you suppose the church made a video?”

It had been six hours since they’d left the graveside and except for her mother, everyone
else had gone home. Standing in the kitchen, looking out the window but not seeing
anything, Meg started to acknowledge her mother’s comments in the same manner that
she had everyone else’s, with a simple
yes and a line about how glad she had been that all of the family and close friends
could make it back to Springfield for the service, but something stopped her.

This was her mother, they were finally alone, and it was time to be honest. After
all, isn’t that what she’d always preached to her daughter? “Give it to me straight!”
She had said time and time again. Well, it was time that Barbara Hankins experienced
her daughter’s honesty. How could God have dared to take her husband, particularly
now? No words or flowers or pretty services would supply the answer, and Meg had grown
so tired of pretending that she was grateful for any of those things. It was time
her mother heard about what Meg really thought about the service and everything else
that had happened over the past two days. This was the moment Meg could toss off the
part of the good little wife who would lean on God, make it through this hard time,
and let all of her emotions out. Her mother just happened to be in the wrong place
at the wrong time. Like a wild stallion freed from a pen, she charged.

“Mom, I don’t really care who came and who stayed home. I’m glad Terri didn’t waste
her time and money trying to get home. I don’t give a flip about what Reverend Brooks
or anyone else said or did. Steve’s dead and no one or nothing is going to change
that.”

The older woman, obviously stunned at the biting words spewing from her daughter’s
mouth, rocked back on her heels. Almost joyfully, Meg observed the shock register
on her mother’s face. This was exactly the reaction that Meg wanted. And before Barbara
could find her voice, Meg continued.

“If you want to believe that trash about God’s will, you can, but I don’t. You just
show me what good will come out of this. I defy you to present to me just one thing!
You can’t and you know it! No one can! You can’t give me one good reason that it was
best for Steve to die now.”

Meg’s brown eyes were burning with a cold, calculated fury, her tone now sharp and
bitter. She was daring her mother to prove her wrong, verbally slapping the older
woman with the faith she had long worn on her sleeve. And watching the confused look
on her mother’s face gave Meg an emotional lift. After all, this time her mom would
not have any satisfactory answers. There would be no Bible verses to trot out or old
family stories that would make this all better.

Barbara fidgeted on the couch, Meg’s sudden rage evidently shaking her to the bone.
Meg could see the confusion written on her mother’s face and it brought her a strange
sense of satisfaction.

“Now, Honey,” she almost whispered, seemingly trying to choose words carefully so
Meg would not become more upset. “You’re right. Nothing will bring Steve back, but
bitterness is not going to get you anywhere. You can’t just give up on twenty-five
years of faith simply because of one event.”

“One event, Mom? Please get serious. Steve was my whole life. I’m not tossing out
anything that matters, because I’ve already lost that. If God is a loving God, how
could He have done this to Steve, to his family, or to me? You show me some reason,
Mom. You can’t, because there isn’t any. There is absolutely no good reason for this.
Steve didn’t die saving a life, didn’t die for some noble cause, he didn’t die for
anything!”

As silence filled the room and her fifty-five-year-old mother toyed with the corner
of a magazine, Meg almost felt sorry for her. She almost reached out to hug Barbara.
That is what she would have done in the past. She’d always been the perfect daughter.
The girl who came home on time, kept her room neat, didn’t party, and never caused
her parents’ any heartache. But she couldn’t be that person now. At this moment, with
the fresh wounds of grief still raw, she couldn’t reach out in love to anyone, not
even her mother.

“Meg,” Barbara softly began, “I’ve always found that prayer is a way to understand
just what . . .”

Meg cut her off, “Okay, Mom, fine, you go ahead and pray, but I’m not going to. This
God, this almighty being that zaps helpless people at random moments, He is not worthy
of it. I now kind of think He kills people on whims for His own amusement. I wouldn’t
associate with a person like that, so why would I speak to a god like that? It’d be
like being friends with the school bully. If I have to believe that He works in strange
ways, then fine. But if He is all-powerful, he could have saved Steve and He didn’t.
In my mind that makes Him a murderer. And you know what we do with murderers in this
state. We either execute them or put them away for life. Maybe I can’t execute God,
but I can lock Him up and keep Him out of my life. In fact, I already have! I did
it the moment I saw Steve’s body in pieces on the gurney. You should have been there,
Mom. You should have seen it, too. That would have been a blow to your faith. Might
have woken you up like it did me. I wish you’d seen what God did.”

“Now, Meg. God wasn’t driving the car that hit Steve. He didn’t sell the liquor to
those teenagers.” Barbara continued her rambling discourse, but Meg stopped listening
after the word
teenagers
.

Of course, they were the ones really responsible for Steve’s death. She’d completely
forgotten about them until this moment. The driver of that car is the person who really
deserves to feel her wrath.

Meg’s heart began to race as she thought of exacting some kind of revenge on Steve’s
killer. This would focus her pain. Maybe she could even bring the pain she was feeling
now to the person responsible for Steve’s death. Suddenly wrapped up in devising a
prescription to inflict pain, she was only vaguely aware that her mother had stopped
talking.

After an awkward moment of complete silence, Meg said, “Mom, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t
have lashed out at you. What’s happened has shifted my perspective.”

“That’s okay, Honey. I understand.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Meg said, her tone now much softer. “By the way, who was driving the
car that killed Steve?”

“I don’t remember, Honey,” Barbara said almost absent-mindedly, “I’m not sure the
police even released the information. I don’t think they could if the driver was a
minor.”

The realization sent a flood of rage through her body. That wasn’t fair. She should
know the killer’s identity. If fact, she should be the one who judged and sentenced
him.

Meg turned back to the window and stared out to the street. If the news reports didn’t
list the name, then who would know? Spinning around, she grumbled, “There has to be
a way to find out who did this.”

“Why would you want to know, Darling? What good would it do?”

Her brown eyes locked on her mother. “I’m going to find out, Mom.” Smiling for the
first time in two days, she added, “And when I do, I’m going to make him wish that
he’d never been born.”

Meg’s cold statement caused her mother to suddenly wrap her arms around her body as
if chilled. Meg noted the reaction, but didn’t care. An eerie fire burned in her brown
eyes as she planned her next move. She had a mission now. She was tossing away the
old shell of a warm-hearted, loving Christian. That woman now lived in the past. It
was time now to channel her inner Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood—time to become
a driven vigilante. Revenge would be hers and she could already taste it. Suddenly
filled with a sense of power and purpose, her life again had meaning. Her misery could
be
transferred to the killer of her husband, and when that person wore her pain, she
knew she would feel so very good.