TRICKY TRIANGLE

CHAPTER 15

DR. HAILEY MAY STORM

I was surprised, but not shocked, when at the age of thirty-five, I was going through some family pictures and saw ‘Uncle Eddie’ holding me right after I was born. I was curious girl. I had always wondered why a friend of my parents was so devoted to me, while at the same time seeming to keep his love for me on the down low.

I wondered why I had blonde hair and blue eyes like ‘Uncle Eddie,’ but my mother and father had dark hair and brown eyes. But then, I knew how babies were made. It would have taken an affair for Eddie to be my dad. But the man I knew as my father was genuinely close with ‘Uncle Eddie.’ Guys just wouldn’t be that way if some sort of love triangle was involved. Or would they?

I loved ‘Uncle Eddie,’ my biological father, with all my heart. Not because he spoiled me. He was kind and gentle, despite being a valiant warrior, a former Marine, and a distinguished police officer.

A year and five days after he had knelt with me, prayed, and given his heart back to the Lord Jesus, ‘Uncle Eddie,’ my second dad, passed away from lung cancer. He was fifty years old. It was then, at the age of eleven, that I discovered grief could make you physically ill.

It was this mental torment, coupled with ‘Uncle Eddie’s encouragements of my counseling abilities, that led to my pursuit of healing the mind and soul. This resulted with me achieving a doctorate in psychology. Uncle Eddie was the first person to call me Dr. Hailey May Storm a decade and a half before I actually earned it.

There are so many contradictions in a person’s life. Nothing has taught me that more than my job as a psychologist, with the exception of my own life. Is there such a thing as a sin of omission? I believe there is.

I love my mother and father immensely. But letting me grow up believing a lie was just plain wrong. However, I shouldn’t complain since I had a wonderful childhood. I was taught Bible truths that led to old fashioned values. I just had one snag, a secret, that if known would have been a disgrace. My own cousin, Brock Storm, was my first romantic love. The truth is, we were briefly kissing cousins.

I was thirteen when I first developed a crush on Brock. I know this because he is three years older than me, and he had just gotten his driver’s license. At a family gathering, he asked me if I wanted to go for a drive. I said ‘sure’ and off we went in his dad’s four wheel drive pickup.

I felt so cool tooling around town with Brock. He had already developed a reputation as not only a tough guy, but thee tough guy in our neck of the woods. He was always so quiet and mysterious that people were afraid of him. So I felt privileged when he started asking me about myself. What I wanted to be, what I liked to do.

We would only see each other occasionally over the next couple of years. But then something happened when I was a freshman and Brock was a senior. I wasn’t interested in sports, and I declined invitations to become a cheerleader. Instead my friends were book nerds like me.

One boy in particular, Clayton Tatum, was part of our little group of friends. He was a gangly, clumsy nerd with a long narrow nose that his glasses constantly slid down. One day he was walking through the school parking lot reading a textbook, when he dropped it, hitting the bumper of a senior’s car. It did no harm whatsoever to the vehicle, but it elicited the rath of Todd Emerson, the owner. He and his group of hoodlums began harassing Clay after that. They even gave him the moniker Gay Clay.

One day after Clay and I left a class we had together, Emerson came up behind him and knocked his notebook out of his hand. Papers scattered as Emerson and his cronies cackled. I knelt with Clay and helped him retrieve his papers. The next thing I knew Brock was there, bending over and picking up a paper, handing it to Clay.

Emerson had stopped a couple class rooms up where a half dozen guys talked and laughed. Brock eyed them coolly, then turned to Clay. “Go up and knock Emerson’s book out of his hands.”

Clay’s eyes widened, and he shook his head. With a trembling voice he said, “I can’t do that.”

“Yeah, you can,” Brock grinned. “I’ll be with you, you won’t get hurt, I promise.”

Clay glanced nervously at me. I almost couldn’t contain the excitement I felt. But I calmly told Clay, “Brock’s my cousin. If he says you won’t you won’t get hurt, you won’t get hurt. And this will likely stop the bullying.”

“This wasn’t an isolated event?” Brock asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Emerson picks on him all the time,” I told Brock. “Calls him Gay Clay.”

“Come on,” Brock insisted, taking Clay by the arm. “If he doesn’t leave you alone after our encounter, you let me know.”

You should have seen the look on Emerson’s face when Clay knocked his book from his grasp. First there was surprise, then shock when he saw what Clay had done. Then anger, quickly followed by fear, when he realized Brock was not just spectating, but accompanying Clay.

“Deck him, Todd,” one of Emerson’s friends instigated. Brock yanked a book bag off the friend’s shoulder and flung it. “Hey, I did nothing to you.”

“And Clay did nothing to Emerson, or any of you,” Brock replied with a menacing calm.

“Look man, I got no beef with you,” Emerson told Brock.

“Oh yes, you do,” Brock replied sternly. “Clay is a friend of Hailey Storm. She’s my cousin, and any friend of hers is a friend of mine.”

Something dawned on Emerson’s face. He didn’t even know my name was Hailey, let alone Storm. But everyone knew Brock. Forgive me, but I felt a sudden surge of pride, coupled with justice. My jaw clenched, and I crossed my arms, glaring at Emerson. He looked away.

“Come on, guys,” Emerson said, and began to walk off.

Brock grabbed him by the shirt collar and yanked him back. You could fabric tearing. “Did I say you could leave?”

“What’s going on here?” a teacher barked.

“If I hear that you even look at Clay wrong, next time I won’t be so nice,” Brock warned Emerson.

“Let’s break this up!” the teacher demanded. “Go on, get to your next classes.”

I have to hand it to Emerson, he obeyed Brock’s instruction. The bullying not only stopped, but if he happened to glance at Clay, or me for that matter, he quickly looked away.

The weekend after Brock’s intervention for Clay, I went to his house to thank him. He was loading fishing gear into his pickup truck when I arrived. He humbly shrugged off my appreciation, and invited me to join him fishing.

I had a great time! But more for the conversation than the fishing. We talked about all manner of life, but ironically, what we talked the most about was God. At that time Brock was embracing an atheistic viewpoint. There were two things I said that made the gears of his brain churn. First, I asked him what prodded him to do the right thing, if not the Spirit of God?

A little later he challenged. “If God is real, call him down to join us right now, and I’ll believe you.”

“Obviously I can’t do that,” I replied.

“See, I told you that you can’t prove God exists.”

“But you can’t prove that he doesn’t.”

Brock narrowed his eyes and nodded. Then he asked, “What about all the evil in the world? If God is good, why doesn’t he put a stop to it and create a perfect world?”

“Bible prophecy tells us that He will do just that in the future. Right now we live in a fallen world that needs saving, and we do that through God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Brock, we live in a world that murdered God when chose to walk among us. If you don’t like how cruel this world is, your beef is with the prince of this fallen world, Satan, not the Creator.”

When Brock made a joke by quoting Acts 26:28, I knew he had at least read some of the Bible. He told me in old English vernacular. “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”

I laughed, but would have been more pleased if he had quoted something the Apostle Paul said, rather than King Agrippa.

Although I had a great time, I left Brock that day feeling troubled. My crush on my own cousin was transforming into falling in love. I knew it was impossible, yet I couldn’t help the way I felt. I told myself it would pass, and that Brock surely didn’t have reciprocal feelings for me.

Yet a couple weeks later, he invited me to go fishing with him again. We sort of became occasional fishing buddies over the next couple years. I was not a late bloomer, and during the summer of 2003, I tried to make the most of it. Brock was twenty, while I was seventeen. I wore a bikini top and short shorts. Although I noticed Brock noticing me, he never invited me to go fishing alone with him again.

July fourth, 2004, found Brock, our cousin Six Sallie, and me out fishing together. Six had brought a cooler of beer. I thought Brock didn’t drink, so I was surprised when he took one from Six. Then to my surprise, Six handed one to me, and I drank it. I had never had alcohol before that day, and so far, have never touched it since.

One led to two, two to three, and three to four. Somebody called at Six from the lakeshore. The next thing I knew, Six was gone, and Brock and I were alone. I don’t know how many beers he had, but I perceived we were on the same page with our desires. When we relaunched from the shore, Brock maneuvered the little fishing boat to a secluded spot.

But rather than seducing me, which I had secretly hoped, he cast his line and leaned back in his seat, relaxing. So I devised a plan to seduce him. I cast my line, but rather than lean back in my seat, I laid out a beach towel. There was just enough room on the small boat to lay down.

“Will you let me know if I have a bite?” I asked Brock.

“How come?”

“I’m gonna catch some sun on my back side.”

“Alright.”

I laid down on my stomach, reached to my back and untied my bikini top. After a few minutes, I heard Brock pop a beer open. I abruptly turned and asked, “What was that?”

Brock had been staring lustfully at me, and in surprise, choked on the beer he was swallowing. “What was what?”

“Oh, it must have been you opening your can.”

“Hailey, put your top back on!”

“Why, do you think I’m ugly?” I asked with a playful pout.

“No, no, not at all, as a matter of fact, you, um… Never mind.”

“I what?”

“Never mind.”

I grabbed my top and quickly put it back on. The alcohol must have made me get overly dramatic, emotional, and manipulative. I started to cry. “You do think I’m ugly.”

“Are you kidding?” Brock asked, going to one knee in front of me and taking a hand. “You look in mirrors, you know that you’re drop dead gorgeous.”

“I am?” I replied, giving him wide, vulnerable eyes. “So what’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem?” he said, snorting a sarcastic laugh. “I’m in a boat with my almost naked cousin, who looks like she just walked out of a Playboy magazine.”

“And that’s a problem?” I asked with a sultry smile.

“Yeah, I’d say having inappropriate thoughts about your cousin is a problem.”

“Maybe the thoughts need to become reality,” I said, and kissed him.

I don’t know how long we kissed. It was at least two minutes, but no longer then ten, when another boat entered the little nook where we were floating. We quickly separated with me grabbing my pole and Brock starting the little engine, taking us to shore.

“Look, Hailey, we better stop hanging out together,” Brock said with a sad smile.

“Why?” I tried not to whine.

“Because I’m falling in love with my cousin.”

“You are?”

“I’m ashamed to admit it, but yes.”

“But I’m in love with you, too. We can make it work.”

“Hailey, we’re cousins! We have the same grandpa and grandma!”

Brock, voicing the reality, caused me to feel ashamed. I nodded and bowed my head.

“I think both of us drinking caused us to lose control,” Brock said. “Let’s go get a cup of coffee.”

We had a nice talk over coffee, but it was bittersweet. I was relieved to find out that we both felt the same about each other, but frustrated we couldn’t be with each other due to our relation. Although we parted on good terms, Brock and I never really talked again. We saw each other a half a dozen times at weddings and funerals, but only exchanged brief small talk.

When I first found evidence that Hal Storm wasn’t my biological father, my first thought was of Brock, and what if? When my mother confirmed my suspicions, I wanted to lash out at her and tell her what the lie of omission cost me, but I didn’t.

I know that I would have wanted a relationship with Brock if I knew the truth, but I didn’t know about Brock. After all, we were still cousins, just not by blood. I had to muster up the courage to ask him in person.

(DESTINY’S BIBLE STUDY NOTES AND QUOTES)

(The LIFE and MINISTRY of JESUS #28)

The first true evangelists (See Matthew 10, Mark: 7-11, Luke 9:1-6)

The apostles had listened to Jesus’s discourses, they had walked and talked with the Son of God, and from His daily instruction they had learned how to work for the elevation of humanity.

During His ministry Jesus devoted more time to healing the sick than to preaching. Wherever Jesus went, the tidings of His mercy preceded Him.

The followers of Christ are to labor as He did. We are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the suffering and afflicted. We are to minister to the despairing, and inspire hope in the hopeless.

God’s servants are to contend with supernatural forces, but they are assured supernatural help. Our infirmities may be many, our sins, and mistakes grievous; but the grace of God is for all who seek it with contrition. The power of Omnipotence is enlisted in behalf of those who trust in God.

Jesus fearlessly denounced hypocrisy, unbelief, and iniquity, but tears were in His voice as He uttered His scathing rebukes. He wept over Jerusalem, the city He loved, that refused to receive Him, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. They rejected Him, the Savior, but He regarded them with pitying tenderness, and sorrow so deep that it broke His heart.

Every soul was precious in Jesus’s eyes. While He always bore Himself with divine dignity, He bowed with tenderest regard to every member of the family of God. In all humanity He saw souls whom it was His mission to save.

The servants of God are to overcome evil by the power of Christ. The glory of Christ is their strength. They are to fix their eyes upon His loveliness. Let them rest in the love of God, and the spirit will be kept calm, even under personal abuse. The Lord will clothe them with a divine panoply.

God is dishonored and the gospel is betrayed when His servants depend on the counsel of men who are not under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Worldly wisdom is foolishness with God.

Jesus Himself never purchased peace with compromise.

It is Satan’s work to men’s hearts with doubt. He leads them to look upon God as a stern judge. He tempts them to sin, and then to regard themselves as too vile to approach their heavenly Father or to excite His pity. The Lord understands all this. Jesus assures His disciples of God’s sympathy for them in their needs and weaknesses. Not a sigh is breathed, not a pain felt, not a grief pierces the soul, but the throb vibrates to the Father’s heart.

God is bending from His throne to hear the cry of the oppressed. To every sincere prayer He answers, “Here am I.” He uplifts the distressed and downtrodden. In all our afflictions He is afflicted. In every temptation and every trial the angel of His presence is near to deliver.

A daily, earnest striving to know God, and Jesus Christ whom He sent, would bring power and efficiency to the soul.