Chapter Twenty-Seven

Denise didn’t want to do it, but she felt compelled to. She wasn’t sure how long she had looked at the file, searching Travis’s face for pieces of his mother. It had been a long time of hating and then doubting herself, then finding Jesus in college and giving it all up only to revisit it from time to time—a pinched nerve that aggravated her spirituality, but most importantly, her heart.

How was she to be a faithful servant when the thought of Whitney Marksmen made her sick?

The school went into an uproar over Jamal’s death. The black kids called it a hate crime, and the school jumped on that track to save face. Never mind their facilities being slack as they were, a pint-sized mother of one could easily make her way into a dorm to off a student. There were even fights on the weekends on Dickson Street from the backlash, all out brawls that left people bleeding and broken. One guy lost an eye over it.

But Denise only heard about these things. She was nursing a bruised soul and a jacked-up face that throbbed every time she looked at it. She was drinking a bitter cup of coffee one afternoon in the lull of the day when either most kids were in class or passed out, nursing a weekday hangover. She sat alone in the cafe in the union where it was only her and a part-time student who kept wiping the counters down with a dirty looking rag.

“This seat taken?” A girl roughly her own age pointed at the empty chair at Denise’s table. Denise thought she was being set up. The entire place was empty, and this jokester was trying to sit with her.

“Yes, by my invisible friend, Jack,” Denise said, trying not to wince as she took another sip.

“Well, it’s Jack’s unlucky day. Beat it, Jack,” the girl said, pulling the chair out hard and sitting down across from Denise. She had such long, thick, curly hair that it looked like she had fashioned a rope together and glued it to her head. Her face was plastered in freckles. But at least they’re not zits, Denise thought, taking a prime opportunity to feel sorry for herself.

“I just wanted to introduce myself. I see you here sometimes.” The girl had a green Gatorade water bottle she accidentally slammed onto the table. It looked like it belonged to a football player, not a redhead with overzealous arm movements. “Sorry. I’m kind of nervous.”

“Why? Somebody tell you this was a date?” The girl looked shocked for a moment and then snorted.

“Oh, you’re joking.”

“Of course, I am. I don’t date redheads,” Denise said. The girl laughed again, completely missing the hostility Denise was trying to throw her way. 

“Sorry, I’m Sarah,” she said, extending Denise a freckled hand. Denise took it and pumped it up and down aggressively. Sarah retrieved her hand as if she was worried she wasn’t going to get it back. “And you are?”

“The girl in the coffee shop you’ve been stalking apparently. If we’re not gonna date, then why are you here?”

“Good question. Um, do you know anything about Captains for Christ?” Oh, here we go, Denise said, her eyeballs rolling on their own volition. What a perfect afternoon. She was still struggling to even stay awake during the day since sleep was no longer an option at night after her ex-best friend’s brutal murder, and now some goody two shoes was going to introduce her to Jesus.

“Can’t say that I have and can’t say that I want to.”

“Oh, dang it, Sarah,” Sarah said to herself, slightly startling the both of them. “I didn’t mean to tell you that part yet. We need to get to know each other first.”

“We do, do we?” Denise said, swallowing down another piping hot mouthful of coffee. She was trying to make a mental list of all the places she needed to be at the moment but came up with zilch.

“I just mean, I want you to know I value you as a person...um...?”

“Tallahassee.”

“Your name’s Tallahassee?”

“I don’t see why it can’t be.”

“Fine, I can see you don’t care and—” There was a little part of Denise that went off into a panic. She didn’t have anywhere to go. And this was the first time she had been personally talked to—not counting class lectures or that guy who delivered pizza to her dorm who coughed out the price of her order—in three days. She didn’t care how awkward Sarah was. At least she was breathing.

“No. It’s fine. Go ahead.”

“Oh, okay then. I just wanted to say that you mean something, you know? I can tell that you’re sad. I’ve seen you, the way your face always looks so...dismal.”

“Well, keep the compliments coming.”

“You know what I mean.” Sarah said it softly and looked into Denise’s eyes like she was really looking at her. Everyone else either pretended she wasn’t there or stared at her skin, probably saying a silent prayer to God that they didn’t have to live her miserable existence. But Sarah was different. 

“Maybe,” she said. “What does this have to do with Barons for Buddha?”

“Captains for Christ,” Sarah said, trying not to show her irritation. “It’s just a group of us on campus who get together and share our struggles, our heartbreak. So...” Sarah said, shooting a stream of water into her mouth that dribbled down her chin. “Want to join us?” she asked, wiping it with the back of her hand.

“Why not? You had me at heartbreak,” Denise said, trying to pretend being invited anywhere didn’t mean so much to her.

The first meeting was atrocious. It took place on a Wednesday night in the basement of the Lutheran church on campus. There were eight of them total, Denise included, and because Denise was the only special guest, it seemed the students gathered there took it upon themselves to all play the role of the overzealous host. It was annoying, for sure, but for somebody who had a vague notion of where her parents even were at the moment, it felt almost good being the center of attention, even if that attention was awkwardly thick. The next week, she toyed with the idea of not going back. Her face was particularly bad, which meant she just wanted to suck air under her pillow. But Sarah had somehow found her dorm room, and Denise didn’t know how to communicate the fact that she didn’t want to see anybody because her skin looked like it was eating itself.

Like Sarah, there was also something different about the seven captains of Christ who kept offering plates of chocolate chip cookies and room temperature milk. They didn’t seem to care what she looked like. On the other hand, Denise was concerned that they were most likely a cult and just needed a warm body to fill up space even if that warm body was more hormonal than a thirteen-year-old boy.

But one night they broke off into groups. A few more of them had gathered for the meeting after arriving back from a mission trip somewhere in Missouri. She sat in a group of three other girls, three girls she assumed were as sugary sweet as the chocolate morsels lodged in Denise’s teeth, but what they said was startling. One was pregnant, having just recently joined the group. She was baptized on the trip apparently, which Denise thought might be akin to some sort of sorority initiation, but she kept her mouth shut. This girl was knocked up and still had a smile on her face. She didn’t seem worried in the slightest.

Another one talked about her brother who was so strung out on drugs, he attempted to kill her father the other night. It was like listening to someone read a trashy novel sitting in this tight circle of young women, knee-to-knee. But it didn’t end with their jaw-dropping confessions. It ended with prayer.

Sarah bowed her head and so did the other girls. Denise had followed suit, staring at her thighs threatening to bust through her sweatpants before closing her eyes. Sarah prayed for peace, a sense of reliance on Jesus no matter the outcome.

That had thrown Denise for a loop. 

Why didn’t Sarah pray—if she was even going to pray to anything at all—for everything to be better? Why did she just leave it up to some dude name Jesus and ask to be okay with whatever He decided? The thought edged on utter lunacy for Denise, so much so she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“My parents are major dirt bags,” she told Sarah one afternoon during coffee. They were at the same table where they had met, but Denise had cleaned herself up a bit. She wore a navy turtleneck that felt like a boa constrictor was trying to swallow her whole and had troweled on enough pancake make up to hopefully cover the crops of pimples on her face.

“Okay?” Sarah asked, waiting for the punchline.

“So, you’re telling me, I’m supposed to pray to this Jesus guy and just hope He takes mercy on me, but even if he doesn’t, I’m supposed to be okay with the fact that my mother can’t get off sedatives and my dad loves his golf bag more than he does me?” It felt like she had just thrown up on the table, and Sarah was tasked with cleaning up the mess.

“I’m not telling you anything. Belief isn’t a thrown-up prayer and crossing your fingers, Denise. It’s an utter reliance on Jesus. It’s trust that He knows better than we do. Can you say that you were there when the world was created? Did you set the earth on its axis? Then how do you even know what’s right when this is the first time I haven’t seen you wear dirty sweatpants since I’ve met you?” 

Denise cocked her head and finished swallowing her coffee. “Well, that was bold.”

“I’m not meaning to be hurtful. I’m just telling you the truth, Denise. You’re not the best captain of your ship, but He is.” 

Denise hid a smile. Every time anyone in their Wednesday night group said the word “captain” the song “Love Will Keep Us Together,” played a loop through Denise’s thoughts. But Sarah was infuriatingly right. Denise had been in control for so long, her back ached. And all she had to show for it was a friendless existence and painfully tender skin. Jamal was dead, and he wasn’t coming back, and Denise had no clue where he was. And that scared her.

“Fine. What’s this baptism thing all about?” 

They did it the next day. They all gathered in the worship sanctuary, which felt like being a rodent and seeing the sun for the first time. The ceiling here was higher than in the church basement, and instead of speckled tile, the floors were covered in rich blue carpet. The water was cold, that’s the first thing Denise still remembered. The second was how everything seemed to fade away the moment she submerged.

She felt new, at least for a little while. She even convinced herself her acne was clearing up despite the flare ups whenever she ate dairy. She went home on breaks to a house that was practically empty save for DeAnne, their maid, and a reclusive version of her mother who sat in bed in her silk pajamas like some Hollywood invalid. She tried to tell her father once about the baptism. That was a mistake.

“They got you to join their little club, did they? Watch out. Those tithing fines are a tad bit more than the yearly ones I pay at the course!” He laughed and shoved more prime rib into his mouth as Denise sat stupidly silent at the end of their dining room table.

She started to doubt herself. She started to doubt Sarah and the cookies, and the way being washed in the water felt. Maybe it was just a hoax, a pyramid scheme of sorts where you needed to get more bodies in just to boost your own cred. She called Sarah one evening, alone in her room at home. She had to wait until her mother stopped sobbing about how much everything hurt. At first Denise thought it was a show her mother put on to up the handful of pills she took daily. But she started to worry that her mother wasn’t acting, that she had come to believe her body was rife with so much pain that she couldn’t bear to live anymore.

“You haven’t been reading, have you? Or going to church?” Sarah asked. Denise panicked for a second, thinking she missed picking up some sort of pamphlet that would explain the strange way she felt as a new believer.

“Your Bible,” Sarah asked as if to clarify Denise’s train of thought.

“Oh. Right.” Her Bible was small and robin’s egg blue. Sarah had bought it for her as a baptism gift, and it had set rigidly un-opened since that moment. Denise was intimidated. She never liked reading anything let alone a book that barely made any sense. She had barely grazed Leviticus, and the only thing she’d learn was to refrain from boiling any goats in their mothers’ milk. If that was the test of a true Christian, she was doing splendidly.

“Psalms in the Old Testament, Matthew in the New. One chapter from each every day. Any questions, call me. And after you read? Pray. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just a prayer that God will help you understand His word in your heart.” Denise was impressed how authoritative Sarah was when there was an entire state between them. She could hear someone laughing in the background and Sarah laughing right back through her hand muffling the receiver. “Hey, I gotta go, but be sure to check out some churches too. You’ll be heading back home during breaks so might as well find a good place down there.” Denise dumbly nodded her answer as Sarah hung up. There was a stab in her heart knowing the only background noise she offered was a woman wailing about some phantom illness.

She did what Sarah had said, turning off her lights in her room and reading with a flashlight under her covers. It made her feel better to pretend her parents cared enough to enforce no lights on past midnight.

What she hadn’t expected was the sadness. She met a bunch of goofy, smiling students at Captains for Christ, some who had more cookies to share than any real stories. Others were the real deal, but even they seemed to be infected by the corny cheer and camaraderie. It wasn’t until she read Scripture that she understood suffering at a gut level. It felt like peace knowing she wasn’t the only one calling out into the dark and faceless night.

David prayed the ground would swallow up his enemies and Jesus sweat blood from the fear of His own death. What was the saying? Truth was stranger than fiction? Stranger, yes, but also welcoming. She couldn’t talk to her parents about anything, and even Sarah, who had a good heart, wouldn’t have understood the way Denise fell apart at night, crying for anything to make it all stop. She did say her prayer. She said she was sorry, wrapped up under her covers. She asked for Jesus to hold her because nobody had touched or really talked to her or even truly loved her in what felt like forever. And she didn’t know how to keep walking the face of the earth that had chewed her up and spit her out.

She slept so peacefully that night. She wasn’t disturbed by her mother’s tears or father’s late-night sneaking back into the house. She was out like a baby. Like a child who knows nothing but trust. 

Giving everything over to God was peace, but at times, it also hurt like hell. She had taken a mission trip to Haiti her senior year, and the air was rife with black magic. Denise could even feel it, and she had spent a small lifetime not trying to feel anything. Her dad moved out when she had gotten back, and then she had graduation, which he missed because he was out of the country with his receptionist, and her mother refused to come because of her pain. 

“You know I’d be there otherwise, Lamb Chop.” Her mother had resorted to using pet names she had never used before, not even when Denise was a kid. Denise knew it was guilt, a dark monster who sat right next to Lucy McGovern, its teeth as sharp and invisible as the ones she felt digging into her skin in Haiti. The only good thing it seemed about graduating and moving on with her life was her face clearing up. And she supposed getting into law school wasn’t half bad either.

It was a grind though. She found herself sleeping in the shower standing up and waking up to shampoo in her eyes. Studying replaced breathing, and even though Denise always knew she was smart, there was this new recognition that she might not be as smart as she thought, being surrounded by people who seemed undeterred by the copious amounts of reading and case studies piled onto their plates. It was even harder coming home on weekends and holidays, caring for a mother who she didn’t think needed caring for as much as she needed a hard shake of the shoulders. She didn’t deny how crushing it must be to spend your entire life with a man who treated you barely kinder than he would a house plant, only to watch him walk away and lavish his love on someone twenty years younger than you. But Denise didn’t spend time on planet “woe is me” like her mother did, opting to find the hard truths and reality to this world in Scripture. There, it seemed everything hurt, too, but the hurt was growth, sanctification. A way for the soul to yearn purely for its Maker, not knock itself out with a handful of pills.

Her saving grace was St. Andrew’s. She found it one Saturday in the phone book, shortly after Sarah advised her to find a good church. She’d go to the early service on Sunday before her three-hour drive back to the University of Arkansas’s law school. During service, she would sing and take communion and bow her head in prayer. She listened to Pastor Luke’s sermons and wished her mother had found a man like that once upon a time to marry. But there was no use in crying over what couldn’t be changed.

Her father was actually good for one thing. He was able to get her the gig at a small law firm in Little Rock that did a lot of pro bono work. It was supposed to be a lesson for her. “Don’t think just because I know every lawyer in town that you’ll be starting at the top, my dear,” he said at lunch with her once she was officially done with school and out on her own. He had brought the receptionist with him, a young thing that wasn’t as pretty as Denise had imagined but figured her youth made up for that. Her father’s plan had backfired though. Denise turned it into a punchline, opting to stay on and work for peanuts, which bugged her father to no end. Who wanted a kid with a law degree if you couldn’t brag about what they did?

And that was what she was doing now, her mind working out the noise that erupted the moment she had opened Travis Barnes’s file. Working for peanuts with sweat stains to boot. Last night, after she had worked out the day’s residue with shampoo in the shower, she sat down to a cup of tea and a dog head in her lap. Benjamin was no longer a pup but a full-grown golden retriever who had loved her more than anyone she had ever known. She had found him as a puppy two years ago. He had no tracking device, no collar, and when the lady at the front counter at animal control had practically whispered “run” when Denise had taken him in, Denise had done just that. She had run all the way home to shower Benjamin with kisses, after of course stopping at the pet store for a few treats.

“Oh Benjamin,” she had said absently, scrolling her laptop to catch up with the past. It stung, the wound Whitney had torn open the day she murdered Jamal. But Denise knew she had been no saint either. Her hardened heart had never been fair to the girl who barely looked like an adult, even now in the unflattering photo of her that some journalist had taken in a write-up he did on the anniversary of the event. Denise clicked her mouse and started typing again and found Travis’s LiveJournal. The deeply human side of her expected to see gang colors and lewd posts about drugs and women. And Denise felt ashamed when what she found was a young boy, barely a teen who deeply loved his grandparents and smiled for the camera with a young man in his mid-twenties who seemed to have a disability. If this was who Travis really was, what had gone so wrong?