Come Before Winter – Chapter Twelve – the Blessing
December 12th, 2021
2 Timothy 4:21, “Do your utmost to come before winter.”
CHAPTER TWELVE – the BLESSING
For the ensuing weeks, Mercy watched the mail. Or, rather, Patsy watched the mail for Mercy. Something. Anything. Even a scrap of paper with an address scrawled on it. A phone number. Just anything. It began to seem like an unfair trick to play on someone, a sick joke, like being bullied. ‘Come quick. You’re needed. Your loved one is dying. Come now!’ Then nothing. No number. No address. Silence. Silence is the loudest noise of all. It clamors in its stillness, noisy in its quiet.
Mercy spent a lot of time then with Michael and Patsy and the kids. They had their own three, two home for the summer from college and the little one, the afterthought, she liked to call herself, and currently they had two foster kids also. And Mercy. The busyness of the household and the summer activities and weekend events made life seem to sail lullingly on its own undisturbed waters. Mercy coveted the flourish of family and being a part of something bigger than herself. She even got to kid-sit so her friends could have some time alone, some peace and quiet, and that made her feel useful. When she wasn’t working—which she was working any shift they offered her to keep herself busy and so she could save as much money as possible to purchase the unknown of her future—and when she wasn’t sleeping, she was with the Mason clan. Mercy was content for maybe the first time ever that she could recall in her life. But there was still this impending doom as she watched the days fall from the calendar. ‘Do your best to come before winter,’ greeted her every morning, tucked her in every night. Where? Come where? Besides Denver, which in itself was a long shot, she had nothing to go on.
Patsy and Mercy pored over maps, read articles about the largest city in Colorado, and glanced through pictures of the Mile High City as it was known, to see if anything rang a bell in Mercy’s memory closet. Patsy even tried contacting Human Services, but due to HIPAA rules, she wasn’t allowed any information about the girl. In frustration, one afternoon late in the summer, Mercy sat down at the Mason’s kitchen table and called DHS herself, appreciative that Patsy had tried to shield her from researching more than perhaps she was ready for. Mercy heard the words her friend uttered in a prayer for answers and felt her presence hovering over her as she explored details of her life she had long since forgotten—or more likely, stuffed someplace faraway. The woman who had taken Mercy’s call was helpful and kind, her tone filled with pity, which humiliated Mercy. She hung up, her cheeks splotchy and her eyes stinging.
‘Denver County,’ she voiced. ‘That’s where I lived. She gave me the address where I was found.’ After a bit, she whispered, ‘My dad and my papaw were incarcerated. They’ve both been out for a while now. I can read the records; it’s public information.’ Her sigh hung in the room like a question. ‘I don’t know that I want to,’ she mouthed eventually.
What she kept learning just seemed to be making everything worse. Her life had been headed forward, up, places. She almost wished the letter had never come. Mercy tried to imagine what she might be doing and what life might look like this summer to her without that stupid note. But now, she couldn’t wrap her head around that, because literally a piece of every day was eaten by the words her father scrawled on a page. Where were they now? Had her grampa died yet? Was she too late? And then bitterly, she surmised, they’d never shown for her, which began Mercy’s spiral downward that would take her the rest of her childhood and maybe even her life to recover from.
‘You don’t suppose they were in prison and that’s why they didn’t come home, do you?’ Suddenly the thought came to Mercy, and at once, she understood far more than she ever had about the mystery of her existence and the disappearance of her family.
Patsy’s answer was far away. ‘Probably not in prison, love, because it takes a while to end up there. But you might be right, maybe in jail? Maybe they’d been arrested and that’s why they didn’t come back for you.’
A memory flitted through Mercy’s mind, like the fine traces of a dream that linger in the corners or a vague thought, one you don’t know if actually happened or perhaps you saw it somewhere on a movie screen or watched it in a TV show. She shuddered and felt all the color drain from her face.
‘What is it?’ Patsy asked fervently. ‘Did you remember something?’
Mercy closed her eyes, trying to recapture the thought that pricked her. Sweat beaded at her hairline and she felt it trickle down her sides. At the same time, she felt full of holes, like wind whistling through her. Shivering, ‘Yeah. I remember. Well, part of something anyway. I hear sirens and see spinning red and blue lights. There’s a really nice man in a police uniform standing at a door, and another man in a suit. Wait, that’s my papaw! They’re talking to my papaw, and my papaw is crying. I wish I could hear what they’re saying!’ Mercy wailed.
She grew silent for a very long time. Patsy checked on her casually to see if she had nodded off to sleep. She jumped back, scaring each other when Mercy found her words. ‘I think I have to go there, Patsy. I’ll never know until I do, and I’ll always regret I didn’t if I don’t.’ Slowly, Patsy nodded. And Mercy nodded in response. She’d received the blessing she needed.
Jeremiah 29:10-14, ‘This is God’s Word on the subject: “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen. When you come looking for me, you’ll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.” God’s Decree. “I’ll turn things around for you. I’ll bring you back from all the countries into which I drove you”—God’s Decree—“bring you home to the place from which I sent you off into exile. You can count on it.”’ (MSG)
To Be Continued…
