BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 17

LOUIS LEWIS

NO EVIL SHALL BEFALL YOU, NOR ANY PLAGUE COME NEAR YOUR DWELLING. FOR HE SHALL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE OVER YOU, TO KEEP YOU IN ALL YOUR WAYS. (Psalm 91:10, 11)

            Destiny and Brock Storm’s remote acreage proved to be a refuge for many who were seeking shelter from the chaos of the plagues. They were showing up miraculously, claiming that they were brought by somebody in the know, that they did not know. More than once I witnessed them look around in bewilderment, exclaiming, ‘Where did they go?’

            The very first such person was Tim Grant. He was a distinguished looking man in his seventies. He had aged well and was in great shape for someone in the category of geriatric. I had taken a liking to him, notwithstanding thinking he might have a screw loose at first, due to his supernatural encounter. This only proved I still struggled with skepticism, despite miraculously escaping the first plague myself. But my faith was strengthening by the hour.

            Tim had a gentle manner with an easy smile, despite the bedlam happening in the world. He had been in search of Anna Clayton. When the first plague causing loathsome sores began to infect the majority of the population, he had become concerned about his onetime friend. I hadn’t known initially that they had been more than just friends. It turned out, he hadn’t known he had a daughter by her.

            And that’s why Anna’s husband had been irate when Tim had shown up on their doorstep an hour before standing on the Storm’s doorstep. That’s why after the affair he had moved away and had kept his distance for more than eight years. That’s why after the adulterous liaison he had sought repentance with tears.

            But after the plague fell, he needed to be sure Anna was okay. When Brad, his former neighbor opened the door, he hadn’t expected him to be glad to see him. What he hadn’t expected was to see the grotesque, puss oozing sores on Brad’s face. He had liked and respected Brad when they had lived next to each other. He had always thought of him as a Godly man, so he was sure that he would have been safe from the plagues. He wasn’t so sure about Anna.

            Despite Brad’s current attitude, he had graciously forgiven them both not quite a decade earlier after a guilty conscience had forced a confession from Anna. But then she had begun calling Tim again only a few months after their fling. Tim had patiently, kindly ordered her to stop trying to contact him. Yet a half dozen more times she had sent him texts pleading that she needed to see him.

            As painful as it was, he had ignored them. He didn’t know that she simply wanted to tell him the not so simple news that he was going to be a father. He didn’t know that Brad had actually insisted that Tim had a right to know. He didn’t know that Anna felt like it was news to be delivered in person. He didn’t know that Brad planned to accompany her in the possible meeting.

            As our numbers increased, the Storm’s large farm house began to feel like a bed and breakfast. Then it was like a college dormitory as we were doubled and tripled in our rooms. The children were sacking out on the living room floor. Despite uncertainty in the world, God blessed the kids for their simple faith and allowed them to treat our current living like a slumber party.

            I was sitting on my bed reading my Bible when Tim walked in. He and I had been paired up in my room. He had a look of awe and wonderment on his face. He and I had become fast friends, so he used a shortened version of my name as he addressed me. Sitting on his own bed he said, “I can hardly believe it, Lou. I have a daughter.”

            I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I said as much. “What do you mean?”

            “Anna, she just informed me that that little angel Brianna is the fruit of my loins.”

            I frowned. Maybe it was our age difference, for Tim had a good quarter century on me, but I found his term describing his parentage to Brianna odd. Yet I knew exactly what he meant, and I was stunned. Oh I knew Anna had confessed to infidelity, and that Brianna wasn’t her husband’s biological daughter. What caught me unexpectedly was it turning out to be this humble, pious man who was old enough to be Anna’s father as well as Brianna’s.

            “This is good news then?” I asked.

            He looked at me with a bewildered expression. “I don’t know. That one amazing night with Anna left me with years of guilt.”

            He began to whimper, then cry, then sob to the point his whole body shook. “How can such beauty come from ashes?”

            I suddenly knew why God had paired him and me together. I shared a common bond with him, a secret not even a half dozen people knew. A secret that left such a huge scar of shame on my soul I fought to keep the words inside that felt compelled to come out.

            Why, oh why did I feel this urge to confess to my brand new brother in Christ? This man I barely knew who was my complete opposite. He was soft spoken and gentle, compared to my history of gruff and abrupt. He was well to do, and I had mostly lived paycheck to paycheck. He drove a new Volvo, and I drove a car I bought at a police auction. Yet I felt a kinship with the man I couldn’t explain. Maybe we would even end up with our arms around each other singing ‘Ebony and Ivory.’

            “I know how you feel,” I heard myself say. “I too have a daughter out of wedlock.”

            His gaze was intense as we locked eyes. We didn’t know each well enough then for him to be surprised. But his countenance expressed, ‘You mean I’m not alone? Someone knows what it means to claim to follow God and fail big time?’

            As reluctant as I had been, it felt good to get this off my chest with someone. Someone who would not only understand but benefit as if we had our own little support group. But then he asked a question that caused my thinking to do a one-eighty. “Are you two close?”

            I looked away from his penetrating blue eyes. “No, she’s mostly wanted nothing to do with me.”

            “I see,” he said blankly.

            “But our situations are different, even though they’re similar,” I said, and then frowned at the contradictory statement. “It was a complicated time in my life. But when hasn’t there been a complicated time in my life.”

            “In the world we will have tribulation,” Tim said reassuringly.

            “But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world,” I finished. (John 16:33)

            We aimed forced smiles at each other. Then we sat in awkward silence for minute. Then he told me about him and Anna. How he fell in love with her after the initial harsh grief of his wife’s passing. He told of the afternoon they had innocently talked for an hour or two over a bottle of wine and things spontaneously turned romantic.

            I gently rebuked him. “Tim, there’s nothing innocent in sharing a bottle of wine with a married woman, especially when mutual attraction is present.”

            “Fair enough,” he nodded. “But in my defense, I thought the attraction was one sided.”

            “Did you? When you broke open the bottle of wine, what was your motive?”

            He considered me for a moment, sighed. “I wanted to loosen us up to see if the chemistry I felt was one sided or not. But I truly thought we would have only a glass maybe two, not the whole bottle.”

            “The human heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,” I said.

            “Who can know it,” he finished. (Jeremiah 17:9) Then he added with a forced chuckle, “Well, thanks for putting me in my place, Brother.”

            I chuckled myself and said, “How about I share my own wicked and deceitful heart?”

            “Please do,” he grinned.

            I sighed. “You infiltrated Anna’s marriage; I betrayed my own vows. You seduced with wine, I with power and rank.”

            “You mean like David with Bathsheba?” he interjected.

            “Well, David was a king, while I was merely a police sergeant at the time. But now that you mention it, there was one similarity. The department gave us officers memberships to a gym. The first time I saw Ronda, she was in a hot tub wearing next to mothing. I asked a buddy who she was, and he said she her name was Ronda Jameson, and she had recently been hired on after working as a part time deputy for the Sherriff’s Department.

            “As you know, David summoned Bathsheba to his palace. Obviously I didn’t do that. But a couple days after seeing Ronda, I was put in charge of a vice sting operation. I was asked to ask two female officers if they were interested in working undercover as prostitutes. Ronda was the first one I summoned. She was beyond excited at the opportunity and very grateful.

            “What I’ve told you so far makes it sound like I had nefarious intentions. But that wasn’t the case. I never, ever intended on an affair with Ronda. I never ever thought I would cheat on my wife. But back then I did live by the worldly philosophy, I’m married not buried. It’s okay to look but not touch. However, do you know what Jesus taught regarding this idea?”

            “I certainly do,” Tim replied. “If you look upon a woman with lust you have already committed adultery in your heart.” (Matthew 5:28)

            “Exactly! When I not only saw but studied Ronda in that hot tub, I began the process of adultery. My buddy even pointed out the fact that I was staring. But you know how guys can be. Without the shame I should have felt, I simply told him that I was honing my investigative skills.”

            Tim chuckled politely and asked, “So what was the straw that broke the camel’s back?”

            “It came about very complicated, yet simple if that makes sense.”

            “It doesn’t,” he laughed.

            “Ronda had an abrasive personality. She didn’t have many friends, and she didn’t care to make friends. But she took a liking to me. I think it was because I chose her for that special assignment when she was very much still a rookie.

            “Even though I found her attractive, I never, ever thought I would act on it. But figuring it was one sided, I didn’t think I had anything to worry about. Sure, I was one of the few people she allowed into her small circle of friends, but romance? She knew I was married, and although I was in good shape back then, I never won any beauty contests. And she was a knock out.

            “Plus there was another factor. Being one of the few people in her small circle of friends, I was also one of the few people that knew she was in a relationship with a woman. So add it all up and what do you get? A recipe that makes nothing, right?”

            “It would seem so,” Tim replied. Then he arched an eyebrow. “So what happened?”

            “Like you and Anna, we were having adult beverages together after work.”

            Tim shook his head. “Think of all the problems alcohol causes.”

            “Well Tim,” I said with a little smirk. “I can’t speak for you, but nobody was forcing it down my gullet. My brain kept instructing my hand to put the glass to my lips.”

            “Fair point.”

            “So we were at a favorite cop hang out,” I continued. “I normally never had more than one drink. But Ronda was picking my brain about my first years on the force. So I’m telling war stories and we’re downing beers. She’s leaning on her fist, listening intently, and smiling like I’m the most fascinating man on the planet.

            “We both lived twenty plus miles from the police station. It had also started snowing and there was a blizzard warning. In between the bar we were at and the police station, there was a Holiday Inn Express. All was within reasonable walking distance. Due to the weather and likely having to work overtime with the winter storm, I already had a room booked.”

            “Let me guess,” Tim interjected. “A winter storm led to a perfect storm for infidelity?”

            “You got it,” I replied and then sighed. “Between both of us having too much to drink and drive coupled with the storm, I invited her to my room. I suppose trying to come off as a gentleman, I told her there were two beds. But, yada, yada, yada, we ended up only using one.

            “But unlike you and Anna, ours wasn’t a one off after coming to our senses. We saw each other a half dozen more times over the next couple months. Then at one of our rendezvous’, instead of having sex, she very cooly informed me that she was pregnant and the affair was over. She threatened to make the affair public if I wanted to be part of the child’s life.

            “It was truly a nightmare and the most complicated predicament I had ever been in. Seemingly overnight she and I went from being lovers to enemies. I was worried for my job, worried for my marriage, and worried for my reputation. My wife was unable to have children so it also hurt to have a child I couldn’t acknowledge.

            “Ronda kept her word. I kept my distance, and she never divulged that I was the father. She stuck around until she had the baby, then when her maternity leave was over, she quit the force and worked for an insurance company or some such.

            “She was a complicated woman that I never did figure out. To this day I don’t know how genuine her feelings were for me. If she was acting during our fling, she deserves an Oscar. She just flipped a switch overnight and I became a leech in her eyes. I suspect she just used me as a sperm donor and once she was pregnant, my usefulness had expired.

            “Long story short, I confessed my infidelity to my wife. To my utter surprise she tearfully forgave me. But the tears were not due only to my betrayal. To my utter shock, she confessed of infidelity herself.”

            “Why did that shock you?”

            “My wife was and is very religious.”

            “I’ve come to realize that doesn’t mean much,” Tim said with a sigh. “I’ve always been quite religious myself.”

            I nodded solemnly and continued. “By the time our daughter was a preteen, Ronda and her partner had broken up. Our daughter was having behavior problems, and she finally wanted me to be part of her life. But talk about fire and ice. ‘Lou, meet your daughter. Now discipline her.’

            “So, my relationship with my daughter has been volatile and on again off again. And as I sit here with you today, I am sick inside wondering if Aliyah is covered in loathsome soars or not. She has had moments of being open spiritually. But even more moments of ‘don’t preach to me, Lou’. She never got around to calling me Dad.”

            “How old would she be now?” Tim asked.

            “She just turned nineteen.”

            Tim and I continued to chat when the greatest miracle of my life happened. There was a knock at our door. It was Inga. “Hey Double Lou, there’s a young lady here to see you. It’s yet another case of apparently being led here by an angel.”

            And there she was! Aliyah! And she had no soars!

            I was so relieved, so thankful that she was here and okay that I couldn’t stop the tears. Then I wept for joy after she ran to me with open arms and said, “Daddy!”