twenty-one
SO, WILL YOU FOREVER BE HEATHER THE ADULTERESS, resigned to hang your head in shame and regret? Is that who you are?”
Heather sat cross-legged on the sofa, bare feet poking out, hair falling forward as she double-checked the verse in her lap. She didn’t know this was in there. She was named among a whole host of what she could call “bad actors”—from idolaters and adulterers to thieves and drunkards. She leaned into the page to read again what it said about them. About her. “And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
“And such were some of you . . .”
Heather looked up at Cyd. “No.” Her voice was bare. “That’s not who I am. I’ve been washed . . .”
She didn’t want to, but she broke down, crying through the pain of what she’d been and the joy of what Jesus had given her— the gift of a new identity.
Kelli draped an arm around her, and Cyd came over from the armchair to sit on Heather’s other side.
“Sweetie.” Cyd handed her some tissues. “I’m so glad you’re seeing who you are in Christ, the ‘new you’ as you like to say.”
Heather wasn’t looking at her, but she could tell Cyd had a smile in her voice.
“Let’s look at your papers and see what you ended up with. You two made quite a list.”
Heather dabbed her eyes and took her paper from the coffee table. Cyd had told them to write I am at the top of a page, then jot down anything they could spot during the study that made up their new identity. She called it their “new who.”
Heather and Kelli had made a contest out of it. She leaned over now to look at Kelli’s paper.
“Nope.” Kelli hid it. “First let’s see who has the most, then we can swap and add the ones the other has.”
Heather smiled. “Okay, here’s my list. I am . . . forgiven, loved, redeemed, blessed, a child of God, saved, a witness, an ambassador, protected, accepted, adopted, more than a conqueror, salt and light, free, delivered, a bond servant, an alien and a stranger”—she glanced pointedly at Kelli—“and a new creation—woo!”
“Woo-hoo!” Kelli and Cyd sent cheers up.
Kelli was looking at her paper. “You had a few that I didn’t catch. I’ll just tell the ones I didn’t hear you say. I am . . . a believer, born again—”
“I can’t believe I didn’t have those!” Heather wrote them down.
Kelli kept going. “—a slave to righteousness, a citizen of heaven, set apart, a living stone, and His workmanship.”
Heather shook her head. “This is mind-boggling. Just one of those ‘new whos’ is enough to get excited about. To know that I’m all those things?”
“And more. Those are just the verses we had time to cover.” Cyd closed her Bible. “I want you to keep your list close and read over it now and then to get it down deep. The enemy will try to make you feel guilty about your past, and he’ll use your own thoughts or he’ll use other people. But if you know who you are, he won’t succeed. Got it?”
“Got it!” they said.
“Ready to pray?”
“Cyd, first . . .” Heather could feel the nerves inside. “I don’t know how to say this, but . . . last week at the mall, I noticed the tension between you and Dana, because of me. I just wanted to say I’ve gotten a lot out of just these two times we’ve met. I think I’ll be fine studying on my own from here.”
Cyd’s eyes were soft, sympathetic. “Heather, you don’t even have a church home. I love your heart, but I’m looking forward to spending more time with you and covering more ground. Discipleship isn’t an overnight process.”
“I feel so bad, though. What do you do when you’ve played a part in devastating someone like that? I know I can’t go to her and apologize.”
“This is one of those hard realities,” Cyd said. “You know you’re forgiven. You know you’re a new creation. But sometimes we still have to deal with the consequences of the past. Honestly? Dana may never like you. And no, I would not advise going to her.” Cyd made a face that said it would not be a wise move. “But you can always pray for her. In fact”—she nodded as she thought about it— “that would be awesome.”
The suggestion moved Heather. “I like that. I’d like to start right now.” Heather thought a moment. “And I have something else. My mother’s having a fiftieth birthday party tonight, and I don’t really want to go. When she and her friends start drinking . . . it’s a scene I can do without.”
Cyd and Kelli were listening. Heather never talked much about her family.
“But the main thing is I want to get her a Bible,” Heather said. “I know she’ll think it’s weird, but I’ve been praying for her to know Jesus too, and this could be a first step. I guess. I don’t know, I’m really nervous about it. Can we pray?”
THE FRONT DOOR WAS AJAR, PEOPLE COMING AND GOING as Heather walked up to her mother’s house. Her mother had lived in this north St. Louis neighborhood for more than ten years. If nothing else, she’d built a great camaraderie with the neighbors.
“Heather, haven’t seen you in a while!”
She turned. “Hi, Mrs. Harris. Good to see you. You’re looking quite festive.”
“When Diane said she was throwing a seventies party, I got excited. That was my time, you know.” The raspy-voiced woman was in her sixties, decked out in polyester bell-bottom pants and a long-sleeve paisley shirt. She flicked her cigarette, and orange-colored ashes fell to the ground. “I still had the clothes, and my daughter found me this wig at some secondhand shop.” She fluffed her Afro. “Ain’t it nice?”
Heather chuckled. “Just don’t stand next to me. You’ll show me up, for sure.” The most she’d done to get in costume was wear her widest-legged jeans and a T-shirt with a peace symbol on it.
Heather and Mrs. Harris walked inside the ranch-style home together. The front room had been transformed with tie-dyed sheets over the furniture, but the main action was obviously in the basement. “YMCA” blasted through the floorboards, along with loud voices.
“Hey, I love that song!” Mrs. Harris went straight for the stairs.
Heather headed to the kitchen to drop off her gift bag. Her mother probably wouldn’t open gifts until tomorrow. Heather hoped she’d discover this one in just the right mood, quiet and reflective, though she wasn’t sure it would make a difference.
She stepped inside the kitchen—and turned right back around. A couple she didn’t recognize was leaning against the counter, kissing. They didn’t even pause when they heard Heather’s footsteps.
She headed to the basement instead, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the disco-ball lighting as she joined the partiers. Donna Summer was playing now, the crowd lively, covering most of the floor space. Heather saw many of her mother’s friends as well as neighbors, all of them wearing some form of throwback attire—and almost all of them with a beer bottle or other drink in hand. Finally she spotted her mother, disco dancing in a sparkly minidress and go-go boots, her blond hair styled like Farrah Fawcett’s.
Her mother saw her too. “Heather,” she called. “You made it. Come here, honey!”
“Happy birthday, Mom,” Heather said, giving her a hug.
Her mother stopped dancing and posed. “Not bad for fifty, eh?”
“Not bad at all,” her dancing partner said.
Diane smiled and poked him in the chest. “You, sir, are a shameless flatterer. And I love it.” She looked at her daughter again. “Heather, honey, let me introduce you. This is Cliff. He’s a friend of . . .” She looked confused. “Who did you come with?”
“Mike.”
“Oops.” Diane laughed, covering her mouth. “He’s my boyfriend.” She glanced around. “I’d better find him before he gets mad at me.”
Heather leaned close to her mother. “Mom, what’s that smell? Are you letting people smoke that stuff down here?”
“Since when is that a big deal? Don’t people use it as medicine these days? Certainly makes me feel better.”
Heather sighed, ready to leave already.
Diane grabbed a younger guy walking past. “Tim, this is my daughter, the one I was telling you about. Didn’t I tell you she’s a hottie?”
Heather gave her mother a look. “Mom, please.” She turned back to the guy and extended her hand. “Hi, I’m Heather. Nice to meet you.”
He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Pleasure’s mine. Wanna dance?”
“Um, not right now. But thanks.”
Diane tugged on her hand. “What is with you? That guy’s gorgeous.”
Diane had always acted more like a girlfriend than a mother, setting Heather up with guys, handing her mixed drinks as a teen. But it never seemed sad to her until this moment.
“I’m really not feeling my best,” Heather said. “Maybe I can come visit with you tomorrow.”
“Aww, but I’d hate for you to miss the party—hey, is that a gift for me?”
Heather remembered the bag in her hand. “Oh, I meant to leave it in the kitch—” Why try to explain? “I’ll just take it to your room.”
“You’ll do no such thing. I wanna see my gift. Is it the perfume I like?” Diane took the bag from Heather and stuck her hand beneath the tissue. “What’s this?” She lifted it out. “A Bible?”
Heather cringed.
Diane burst into laughter. “Hey,” she called to those around her, “my daughter gave me a Bible for my birthday.” She held it up in the air. “Think she’s trying to tell me something?”
People raised their beer bottles and cheered.
“When’s the Bible study, Diane?” one of them asked.
Diane thought that was even funnier. “Yeah, I’ll let you know,” she yelled. She turned to Heather. “So what’s the deal? You turn religious on me? You must be conspiring with that brother of yours.”
Heather frowned. “Ian? What does he have to do with it?”
“Oh, he tried sending me a Bible a few years ago. Now he just puts Bible verses in birthday cards. Got one today. Haven’t even opened it.”
“You never told me that,” Heather said.
Diane shrugged. “You never asked.” She put the Bible back in the bag and handed it to Heather. “No offense, honey, but I would’ve used the perfume.”
Cliff took her hand and got her dancing again.
Heather eased back upstairs, avoiding the eyes of those in her path, wondering about her half brother. She didn’t know him well at all. Diane had given birth to him at nineteen but had no interest in raising him. His paternal grandparents took him first, and when Ian’s father married, the father’s wife adopted him. Heather remembered a couple of visits here and there when she was younger and school pictures in the mail, but it had been years since she’d seen or heard about him. He was a believer?
She walked down the hall, took the Bible out of the bag, and tucked it inside her mother’s nightstand. Then she stopped back in the kitchen, which was deserted now. Out of curiosity, she checked her mother’s mail pile. There in the stack was a card with a return address sticker that said Ian and Becky Engel. So he was married. She wondered if they had any kids—if she had any nieces or nephews.
Heather wrote down their Illinois address. After all these years, she suddenly had a real desire to know her brother.