Linda Goodnight - A Touch of Grace

Then Mr. James bowed his head and started whispering. A prayer, Ian thought. The room got real quiet. Even Drew quit fighting.

When the prayer ended, Mr. James handed them each a little key chain with a metal fish on it. Collin wouldn’t take his.

“This is a gift from me to you, not as your counselor, but as a friend who cares.” He stared up at the social worker as if daring her to argue. She looked at the door and didn’t say a thing. “You don’t have to take it, Collin, but I hope you will. It’s a reminder that God will always care for you no matter where you go or what you do. He’ll never leave you. Never.”

Ian liked the sound of that. Jesus must be real nice.

Even though he stood stiff as a statue, Collin let Mr. James put the key chain in his hand. He wanted it. He was just too mad to say so. Then his voice scraped the air like rusty metal. “Where we going this time?”

The social worker lady stood up and moved toward him like she might touch him. Collin backed away.

“We’ve found placements for Drew and Ian.”

Ian’s heart slammed against his rib cage. What about Collin? He didn’t go anywhere without Collin.

“Together?” Collin asked.

“Not this time. I’m sorry.”

What was she saying? That he and his brothers wouldn’t be together? That he would be all by himself with a bunch of strange people? His legs started jerking again.

“They stay with me,” Collin said, but this time he sounded uncertain, as if maybe something bad was about to happen and he couldn’t fix it. “Ian gets scared at night.”

The lady touched Collin’s arm and her voice went soft and sweet. “He’ll be fine. They both will be. And so will you. Now, come on. We need to go.”

Turning, she held out her hand to Ian and smiled. He looked at Collin, saw the truth in his big brother’s eyes. This time Mama was right. Collin and Drew would go away and leave him. He would never see his brothers again. All because of his big fat mouth.

Twenty-three years later, New Orleans

“Dead!”

Head still foggy from a nightmarish sleep, Ian Carpenter pushed up on one elbow. He tried to shake himself awake enough to think straight. Someone had discovered a dead girl on the grounds of Isaiah House.

Heart jump-started by the horror of such a thing, he squinted one eye at the red digital alarm clock. Six-fifteen. After combing the streets of the French Quarter most of the night, he’d been in bed less than three hours. Whatever happened had gone down in that brief time.

Sometimes the futility of what he did was overwhelming.

Through a throat filled with gravel, he said, “I’ll be right down.”

In five minutes flat, he had showered and dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt. He shoved on the new pair of Nike Shox he’d purchased yesterday, finding little joy in them now, and tiptoed down the squeaky wooden stairs of the old three-story mission house. Soon enough, the ten in-house residents would begin the day and he would be expected in the chapel with a word or to play the saxophone.

Ian both loved and hated his calling. He loved the people. He loved ministering and counseling. And he especially loved when someone’s life was turned around by the power of God’s love. But he hated times like these when the dark side won.

In the predawn September morning, he opened the back door out into the courtyard, a beautiful, lush green sanctuary where he often prayed and sought answers to the myriad problems of Isaiah House, the mission he’d started three years ago on faith and a few hundred dollars.

God had called him to this place of beauty and debauchery before Hurricane Katrina. Since the disaster, his work had more than tripled. Originally a small haven for runaways, Isaiah House now did whatever it could for any and everyone. True to the scripture that served as its cornerstone, the mission was a hand extended to whoever needed it. Sometimes that hand was stretched pretty thin.

This morning his courtyard sanctuary was hushed, the willows weeping condensation onto the cobblestone walkway as if mourning what lay just outside the mission walls. Beyond the dripping-wet elephant ears and lemon-scented magnolias, yellow police tape vibrated in the twilight stillness.

The stark contrast wasn’t lost on Ian. He’d worked the streets and slums of various cities all over the country since junior high school when Mom and Dad signed him up for summer missions’ work. Now, at twenty-eight, he’d come to understand all too well that beauty and tragedy coexisted everywhere. Sometimes he felt overwhelmed by his need to make a difference and the utter numbers of despairing mankind.

Ian leaned for a second against the rough bark of a moss-draped oak and squeezed his sleep-gritty eyes shut against the covered body lying on the ground.

Somebody had lost a loved one.

He hadn’t even heard the sirens. No surprise. They went on all night in this part of New Orleans. Sirens and reveling. And the desperate meanderings of runaways and drug addicts.

“Grace for today, Father,” he said simply. “To do Your work.”

And as always peace descended. He pushed off the giant oak, opened the lacy black iron gate and walked toward the buzzing hive of police activity inside the yellow tape.

“You the reverend?” an ebony-faced policeman, dressed in city blues, asked.

“Yes, I’m Ian Carpenter.” He had never been comfortable with the formalities of his profession. He was a street missionary, plain and simple. As his mama liked to say, “There but for the grace of God go you or I.” He was no better or more holy than anyone else. Reverend might fit some, but not him.

“What happened?”

“Looks like an overdose.” Even in the early morning, with the sun only peeking above the horizon, sweat beaded the officer’s forehead. Death was hard work for anyone. “You think she was comin’ to your place?”

“Possibly.”

“You mind having a look, see if you know her?”

Ian glanced toward the plastic-draped body. Unfortunately, in his line of work, this wouldn’t be a first. If she was a local, chances were pretty good that he’d at least seen her before. The street people were his love and his life. He made it a point to know them.

“Okay.” Though he dreaded what was to come, he fell in step with the officer and walked the few yards to the body.

With a respect Ian appreciated, the cop gently pulled the plastic away from a young woman’s deathly white face. Ian’s heart fell to his knees. A weight as heavy as the humidity over Lake Pontchartrain pressed against his lungs.

Maddy. Lost forever. So close to the help here in the mission that he and God longed to offer. Yet, she hadn’t made it.

Another failure for Ian.

He rubbed the back of his neck and blew out a weary sigh. He’d had the dream again last night. The nightmare where he was trapped in a dark place, filthy and cold and scared. For once, he hadn’t minded the phone yanking him from his bed. Not until he’d discovered the reason.

“Her name is Maddy,” he said quietly. “She stayed here for a couple of weeks.”

And for a while Ian had hoped she would heal. But no matter how much he’d prayed and counseled, one day she’d walked out, back to the addiction that had finally stolen her life. She’d once been beautiful, a curse on the streets, but a way to pay for the drugs. So young. And her big green eyes were always filled with confusion.

The officer jotted the information onto a tiny spiral notebook, then squinted up at him. “You know her last name?”

“No.” Most of the time, street people didn’t share identifying information and he accepted them as they came. “But she was a sweet kid. Gentle. Kind of innocent, if that makes sense. Innocent and lost.”