Wilderness Challenge - Chapter 20

Chapter 20

         The day arrived when he took the stitches out.  Candi wasn’t looking forward to that anymore than she had when he put them in.  She had been in bed for the better part of a week, and had only gotten up for a couple hours a day.  She found it was all she could stay awake for.

         “So now that the stitches are out I can go back to my cabin right?”

         “There’s some unfinished business that still needs to be taken care of.”

         “And what would that be?”  Candi knew what the unfinished business was.  She didn’t look forward to the conversation they had never had before she had come to the station.

         Logan saw her expression.  “You know what I’m referring to.  Let’s go over to my cabin where we can discuss this in private.”

         “I’d rather go back to my cabin.  I’d like the familiar around me, when I talk to you about my past, and why everyone seems to think I’m running away from something.”

         “I’ll get your things in the helicopter, and take you and Rascal home.”

         “Just like that?  No argument?”

         “You were expecting one?”  He could see the fear registered on her face, and realized she needed the familiar around her as she said.  It was also time for her to go back.  She had been at the station for three weeks.  The first week had perhaps been the hardest for her.  She had had to depend on Sandra for everything.  The next week she had been able to be up and around and able to take care of herself, but she still tired easily and slept a lot.  The past week she had been able to do more and the stitches were ready to come out.

         “I don’t know what to expect from you.  You’ve been angry with me.  Said you wanted me to go home.  Told me I was irresponsible.  Now this.”

         “I also told you that you’ve done very well on your own here.  You just have to be more careful.  Now I’m going to get your things and we’ll go over to the cabin.”

         An hour later she sat at her own table.  Logan had filled her stove and made the coffee that sat in front of her on the table.

         “Okay, I’m all ears.  There is no one here besides us.  You have everything around you that you are familiar with.”

         A shadow crossed her face at the thought of exposing herself even more to him.  He had been gentle with her during her convalescence, after that day when he had laid into her about how irresponsible she had been.  She had kept her promise, she hadn’t complained once after that, but had waited on him to allow her to go home.  She knew however, that this moment would come.  She had dreaded it for the past three weeks.

         “We’ll start slowly.”  He sat back in the chair prepared to wait until she was ready to tell him what he wanted to know.  His posture also told her that he wasn’t going anywhere until he had what he was there for.

         “The nightmares will go away?”  The nightmares had persisted while she had been at the station.  She had woken many nights in a cold sweat, the covers tangled around her, while Sandra or Stan had tried to calm her fears, and straighten out the bedcovers.

         “I can’t promise you that, but I am sure that with your faith in God, He will take them away as you give them over to Him.”

         “I’ve never heard you speak about God before except that you’re a PK and about Proverbs 22:11.  I looked it up like you suggested.”

         “I thought you might.  Yes, as I’ve already told you before, I’m a preacher’s kid.  I grew up in a strong Pentecostal church.  I’ve already told you about my youth group.  Being a PK, I had to be above suspicion.  Circumspect in all my ways.  I wouldn’t have participated anyway, even if I wasn’t a PK.  Some of my best friends were the down and outers.  The kids that picked on them didn’t want to get on the wrong side of the preacher’s kid.  It could get back to the preacher.  They knew I wasn’t a snitch, so I had my friends and I had friends who wanted to keep in good with me because my dad was the preacher.  In my quest to become a doctor, I fell by the wayside, and haven’t been inside a church since graduate school.  I know I’ve been the source of my parent’s prayers over the past several years.  They’d be surprised and grateful to you for being the strong Christian you are, and being out here to cross my path, and remind me of what I left behind.”

         Candi listened stunned to what he told her.  His parents would be proud of her?  Nobody had ever been proud of her.  They would thank her for crossing their son’s path?  She didn’t feel like the strong Christian he described.  She had too many fears, fears he was willing to help her with.  She felt useless and inferior.  He had called her a burden, so had Sandra, but she had meant it in another way, but a burden was a burden.  Something nobody wanted around.

         Her thoughts were chaotic as she remembered her conversation with Marsha Wilson, on that day, was that almost a year ago when God used her to bring her into the kingdom of God?  He was using her again.  She often asked God to send someone across her path that needed to know Him as their personal Savior and Lord, and here was Logan, a preachers kid, as he said, who willingly walked away from all he had been taught.

         “You can trust me.”

         And she knew she could.  He had been angry with her, with good reason.  He had been gentle with her, as he had been while she had been so badly hurt.  He had praised her for her achievements, which when she stopped to think about it, were quite a lot.  Nobody she knew could or would do what she had volunteered to do.

         Tears slipped down her face as she looked ahead at the thought that the nightmares would disappear and she would live in peace for the first time in her life.

         “It was a long time ago.  My first memories of the home I lived in was little more than a shack.  I remember bugs crawling over everything.  Mice ran across the floor, not even afraid of us.  I don’t remember taking a bath until I was much older.  The only time the house got cleaned up was when someone special was coming to talk to mom and dad.

         “We moved from there to a small house.  Someone came over to the house once a week to help my mother clean the house, and keep it clean.  It was also the first time I remember taking a bath.  I fought it like a wild animal, but the clean feeling I had afterwards was something I wanted every day after that.  My head no longer itched.  I found out I had lice so bad, there were scabs on my head from all the scratching I did.

         “I remember making my own meals.  Mom and dad were usually asleep far into the morning.  They had parties most nights, and sometimes there were still people in the house in the morning.  I had to step over them to get to the kitchen to fix my own breakfast.  It was a couple years later that I found out that my parents had drug and drinking parties.”

         “What about the night you were caught in the storm?”

         “They had a party that night.  I wanted to get away from the smoke and the drinking.  I went out for a walk.  My mom thought I was in my room.  She didn’t know I had left the house until the next day, when she had told the police I had run away.”

         “And the police didn’t suspect anything?”

         “We had moved again, into a better neighborhood, and mom was doing better at keeping house, and I was going to school.”

         “I’m sure they suspected something.”

         “I kept mostly to myself.  I didn’t want to be around people.  When they came to the house, I escaped to my room.  I didn’t have any friends at school.  There were a couple who tried to be friendly, but I was scared of what might be expected of me.”  Memories flooded back that had been sealed in the recesses of her mind for years.

         “Did anyone ever hurt you?”

         “No.  No one ever came near me.  I didn’t have what they wanted.  They were only after drugs and liquor.  I spent my time in my room when mom and dad were entertaining.”

         “What happened to them that you were taken away from them and put up for adoption?”

         “One night, I was about ten I think.  It’s hard to know for sure.  Those years are such a blur.  Anyway, my parents had been having their usual party.  I was asleep in my room.  Suddenly I was awake, and staring at my mother, who held a butcher knife in her hand.  I would be dead right now, if I hadn’t moved as quickly as I did.  I knew mom had been drinking, and doing drugs.  I ran out of my room and hid in the bathroom until I heard her go back downstairs.  It was later that night that I woke up coughing.  My room and the whole house were in flames.  I don’t know how I got out of the house, but I do remember waking up in a hospital room.  A couple days later I found out my parents had been killed in the fire, along with several other people who had been there that night.”  Tears continued to slip down her face at the memories.

         “You never told anyone about this?”

         “No.  I kept it to myself, even when I was taken to a group home.”

         “I’m so sorry.  And your parents, the ones you have now?”

         She looked into her cup of coffee, took a sip as the tears ran unchecked down her face.  She brushed them away as she looked up at him.  “It seems all I do is cry.  You must be tired of these tears by now.”

         “You’ve had a lot locked up inside all these years.  I can see you’re exhausted.  Get some sleep.  We can finish this at a later time.”

         She looked at the light which came through the window of the cabin.  “It’s still early.” 

         “You’re tired, and as your doctor, I’m telling you to get in that bed, and get some sleep.”

         “Tell me something before you go.  You said once that you cared about me.  Were you just saying that?  Or did you mean it?”

         He went around to stand beside her chair, and lifted her to her feet, and looked into her eyes.  “Why do you think I took you over to the station until you were well?  It wasn’t just so that Sandra could take care of you.  It was because I knew I couldn’t.  It wouldn’t have been right.  You needed to have some dignity about you.  With me taking full care of you, that wouldn’t have happened.  I meant it.  I care very much.  You’re one amazing woman.  I’ll be back tomorrow.  I promise.”

         He tipped her face up to his and gave her a kiss that told her how much he cared.  He looked down into her eyes, and she could see he cared very much.

         “I’ll see you tomorrow.  No heavy work.  You’re behind on your work for Taylor & McHenry.  Now get some sleep.”

         “All right.”  He kissed her again and was out the door.  The helicopter soon lifted off and was out of sight.

         Rascal looked around at her and lay down on the rug in front of the fireplace.  She took his advice and was soon asleep.