Between the Lines
It’s never too late to do the right thing
May 20th, 2022
Chapter 9: BEFORE – Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Ephesians 3:20, ‘Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for His miraculous power constantly energizes you.’ (TPT)
They hadn’t really known each other after all. Shanna wondered, do people ever, really? She felt utterly blind-sided. Jessie had ‘disclosed’ his past to her, the reasons for his incarceration, but she had no idea back in the beginning the totality of what that meant for any future future or effect on growing a family.
Jessie felt the same way about Shanna. She had said her addiction was under control; she was managing it just fine. In fact, she had renumerated, his threat to leave her if ever again she used had been the trick. Now this. If she hadn’t been so weak, they wouldn’t be here without any future to look hopefully toward.
Zachary had been adopted by a nice new family, Jessie had just learned. He completed their family, he’d been told, they had been needing a brother for their little girl and weren’t able to conceive again. Jessie now stood on the other side of the door where she’d been camping out, and even the screen couldn’t disguise how stoned and high she was. It had been months since he’d seen her, since she packed her one little pathetic bag and took off trudging down the stairway from their apartment. Heck, it had been months since they’d last been allowed to visit their son with supervision at the foster family’s home and it had been over a year now since Zachary had been taken home to someone else’s home, a home that didn’t include his real parents. Zachary toddled around to the oohs and ahhs and amazement of other people, not his flesh and blood, not the ones who had birthed him. It still tore Jessie to shreds to think about. And perhaps it did Shan too, he considered thoughtfully. Maybe that’s why she stayed high, so she didn’t have to face what she had done to their family.
Their baby took his first steps, grew his first tooth, said his first word, and did all his other firsts in front of people who gave him care and took him in. But that woman didn’t host the womb that Zachary developed in, that man wasn’t the father who gave Zachary DNA. Then his mind challenged him, taunted him. ‘Yeah, that woman didn’t inject herself with a drug that could have been lethal to Zachary in his womb. That man isn’t losing custody of their son because he molested little children once upon a horrific time ago. Jessie stood there with his heart in his throat, afraid it would leak out of his eyes, and for a flicker of a second, he was relieved she was doped up because of the barrier it created. He was relieved that they both were so strung out on their mistakes, her on her drugs and him on his shame. What would it have been like he wondered silently if Zachary were being adopted by another family and they had finally gotten it together for real and then lost him anyway? That would have really sucked, he thought. He wondered what Zachary’s first word was. ‘Ma-Ma-Ma’? Or was it ‘Dah-Dah-Dah’? Would he be confused going to a new home, having new parents? Apparently, the foster family were just that, foster but not adoptive, Jessie had learned. Would the transition be confusing to Zachary? Would he call them Dad and Mom someday? Would he awaken at night and wonder where he was? Did Zachary have any recollection of he and Shanna at all? So many questions rolled through his head like a bowling ball barreling down a lane, intent on squashing the bowling pins, blowing apart the pocket, and he pictured the fragments of his mind exploding into pieces.
‘What is it, Jessie?’ Shanna asked wearily, interrupting the bowling game he was envisioning taking place in his head. She had appeared excited to see him, interested in him, when she’d first opened the door, but now she turned and was wandering back toward the couch, unsteady on her feet. ‘You can come in,’ she threw over her shoulder like some girls toss their hair.
Jessie opened the screen door and let himself quietly inside, following Shanna to the couch that wasn’t any specific color anymore. It’d had more butts of all kinds on it over the years, causing Jessie to choose to stand. ‘Zachary was a…adopted,’ he blurted out harshly, hoping the words would cut her as deeply as they had carved him up. Just as quickly as he had wished to hurt her, he wanted to take it back, the wounded look on her face, the vivid grief in her eyes that suddenly spilled like a waterfall over thin eyelashes. ‘Wh…wh…what do you mean?’ Now she was the one to stutter. ‘I th…thought we had more ti…time. How did this happen?’ her eyes narrowed accusingly. She was so thin, he could almost see through her; so pale, her skin was nearly translucent. He wanted to suddenly wrap his arms around her, take it all back, stop the storm they had been weathering so unsuccessfully; wished he was delivering good news, not earth-shattering.
‘I don’t know anything yet except that a young family with a little girl adopted him. I’m trying to learn more. My case manager called. CPS has been pushing for resolution and closure, feeling it hasn’t been in Zachary’s best interest to remain in foster care. Parole has refused to make any determination whether I am allowed to have my own kid, and truthfully, I think they are scared that if I were to harm Zachary, it would come back on whoever made the decision.’ He paused, chewing on the words that tasted bitter in his mouth. ‘That’s where you were supposed to be, filling the gap, Shanna. They can’t trust you because you’re too messed up to even be found. What? Did you expect them to wait for you forever, to get your crap together, to go to rehab so you could test clean eventually? Did you think Zachary wasn’t going to grow up and need a family who could care for him and give him everything he deserves?’
Shanna recoiled as if she had been slapped, and he bit his tongue. This is where his blood always began to boil. They knew they would have obstacles to hurdle ever since they realized they were pregnant, but Shanna was to be the safe protective barrier his treatment facilitators required, who they called his informed supervisor. But how could she be the protector when she was the one who had harmed Zachary and caused this to begin with?! It disgusted him actually and all he wanted to do was leave and never look back. She disgusted him. He strode toward the door, and it slapped the frame as he let it go behind him. And still halfway down the block he could hear what sounded like the screams of a wounded animal.
~ ~ ~
Day had eventually succumbed, eaten by the depth of night. Shanna lay spent on the filthy floor, curled in a small ball. She wished she could crawl into a crack in the floorboards; she’d almost fit. She had cried ‘til her tears had run out, and now, she felt like a wrung-out dishrag. She simply couldn’t fathom her son was gone, gone for good now. There was no hope, not now.
Something seethed inside of her. She had drummed up memories of her own childhood as the afternoon faded away, littered with her mother’s choices, all the men in and out of their lives, always anxious to offer another high and another, until her mom grew bored and went in search of a new one to replace the old one—man and high, that is. Shards of memories sliced her inside, remembering the first man who’d assaulted her and how Mommy didn’t believe her; then recalling the first time another dude got her drunk and her mom thought it was funny. It wasn’t any surprise when the next one showed her how to use meth, which methed her way up, and when that high grew faint, another one introduced her to Fentanyl. The purple Crown Royal bag, now stained with dope and residue and smelled like it had lived in a hole, was her best friend.
She was so angry at the memories, all the opportunities other little girls had that she’d never been given. The best thing that had ever happened to her had been Jessie, then Zachary. And she had methed it up too. She considered being livid with Jessie, but she knew it wasn’t his fault. They had a plan in place that had been approved by the powers that be. She screwed it all up.
Now Zachary was gone, and forever had changed. No more would she think, ‘Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and get help so I can go fight for my son.’ No more would she get a call that she could at least stop and visit him with his foster family looking awkwardly onward. No more would she think this had just been a bad dream and soon she would awaken to a bright sunny day with Jessie and Zachary in it. No more would she sing the silly little ‘Skinamarinky Dinky Doo’ song to him as she rocked him to sleep. No more was it necessary for her to live, she thought as she reached for the bag and her paraphernalia, knowing there was a lethal dose left at the bottom.
Psalm 139:7-11, ‘Where could I go from Your Spirit? Where could I run and hide from Your face? If I go up to heaven, You are there! If I go down to the realm of the dead, You’re there too! If I fly with wings into the shining dawn, You’re there! If I fly into the radiant sunset, You’re there waiting! Wherever I go, Your hand will guide me; Your strength will empower me. It’s impossible to disappear from You or to ask the darkness to hide me, for Your presence is everywhere, bringing light into my night.’ (TPT)
Between the Lines is based upon a true story. What does God’s faithfulness truly look like? Is it the same in every situation? He is wholly trustworthy; therefore, there is victory, even if it doesn’t resemble everything we imagined.
