Chapter 27

It was the next Wednesday that Vern went back to Seattle – with Al. If anything could convince me of the power of forgiveness, that would do it. She'd hated and feared her father for 26 years, since the first time he'd forced himself into her bed, and now she walked away from the security checkpoint toward the gate with her arm around his shoulders, listening eagerly to him as he described his search for her.

I knew, because Cecelia and I saw them off. I was still a bit suspicious, and fighting it, but Cecelia, being smarter than I am, had completely accepted Vern – or as completely as she ever accepts anyone in such a short time. I've seen her go two or three years calling someone a friend before inviting that person to use her first name; she isn't instantly cordial.

We would have loved to see them onto the plane, and watched it take off, but since the beginning of the War On Terror that's not possible, so we waved goodbye and wandered slowly downstairs and out to the parking garage. As we walked toward the far side of the dark area – it was broad daylight but it's a broad structure and there's not a lot of light away from the edges – Cecelia put her right arm around my waist. "You are not quite ready to make him your friend, are you?" she asked.

I'm no longer surprised when Cecelia reads my mind. "No, not yet, maybe not ever. I can't forget what he did."

"Even though you've forgiven him? Even though you have yourself said that forgiveness means not holding the sin against the sinner?"

"Even though. I ain't proud of my suspicion, C. I ain't happy about it. And I am definitely not going to let him know about it. I forgave him, and I'll keep forgiving him, every day if I have to, till it sticks. But in the meantime I keep getting this image of him and his little girl..."

"And as long as that image intrudes upon your mind, you will be unable to be easy about him. I understand that perfectly, Darvin – I would be incapable of being easy, were such an image a constant visitor to my mind." She paused, squeezing my waist for a brief moment. "You know that when I was a child, on two occasions the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross in Daddy's yard."

"Yeah."

"What you may not know is that – though Daddy forbade it in vehement terms – I sneaked a look out the window the second time, just in time to see one of the men trip, over a root, perhaps, or an inequality in the ground. He recovered without falling, but his hood fell off. And I recognized him."

"I know you well enough," I said, "to know that you would not have given him a hug the next time you saw him."

We had now come to Cecelia's car, in which we'd brought Vern and Al to the airport. She turned and faced me, leaning against her door. "No, I did not. I would not have in any event. Little black girls didn't go about hugging the pastor of one of the largest white churches in town."

I sucked in my breath. "Were you a Christian at the time?"

"Yes. And I believed what our pastor said, about Christ dying to save sinners – all sinners, regardless of color. And I knew that the man I'd recognized claimed to worship the same Christ, believe the same Bible, preach the same Gospel, serve the same God. And yet there he was, burning a cross in our yard. I hated him, Darvin, with all the ire of which I was capable – and you know that I have within me the capacity for great anger."

"I bet you never wanted to visit that church."

She regarded me for a moment, arms folded, her black eyes shining in the light from the overhead lamps. "To this day I have never set foot in that building, and I don't believe I could. I came, eventually, to forgive that man – I went, the year before I married you, to the church where he was then serving, and told him what I'd seen, and told him I forgave him. I meant what I said, too. And I do not hate him any longer. I would welcome him to our church, though I have lost track of him; indeed, I only kept track of him for years because I wanted to know where the man I hated was. But as strong as I am – or as strong as you think I am, for your image of me is superior to the reality – I do not believe that, emotionally, I could bring myself to set foot inside the building where he had been the pastor. I forgave him, and I say that honestly. Yet the hurt is still there. When you commit a great evil, it affects others – and those effects do not easily vanish. If I were to slice your arm open, here," and she gently touched my forearm with a finger, "it would heal, but the scar would always stand out against the uninjured skin. What that pastor did to me, and what Vern has done to you, created scars."