Chapter 9

The next day Karin made a phone call. For now she didn't have to work – New Mexico is a community property state, and whatever else he'd been, Jerry had made a lot of money in real estate while they were married – indeed, he'd been successful before their marriage – and half of that was hers. The rent on her little house wasn't much, and with her half of the proceeds of their joint property she didn't have to work for a while. She figured that she'd have the baby, and let him or her – as the case might be – grow big enough to put into day care, and then go back to work as a nurse. She'd been away from the field for a while, and would have some catching up to do, but she could do it. The hard part would be turning her baby over to strangers while she went to work. But for now she was able to live sufficiently well without working.

The phone call was to the church office. The secretary answered, and Karin asked, "How soon could I meet with the elders?"

"Well, Tyrone's available today, and so is José, but I'm not sure about the others. Let me check schedules..."

Karin waited while the hold music gave her a few bars of "Amazing Grace." The secretary came back on, and said, "Karin? In addition to Tyrone and José, only William is available today. If you need to meet with them today, they can all be here at two."

She drew a breath. "I'd better do this while I have the courage, Sandy. Yes, please, make an appointment for me for two."

"Is there anything I can do, Karin?" Sandy's voice was full of concern.

"Pray, I guess. This is going to be difficult for me."

"Just pray?"

"Yes ... yes, I think so, at least for now. It's ... it's a personal matter."

"Okay. I'll pray for you, then. And if I can help..."

"Thanks, Sandy."

Well, that's one bridge I can't back up over, Karin thought. One way or another, I've got to deal with this. She thought of a story she'd learned in school, and from her father as well. When Hernán Cortés – the Anglos called him Hernando Cortez, but her father had taught her to use the Spanish name with the Spanish spelling – had landed on the coast of Mexico, at what is now Veracruz, he'd burned his ships. His men, watching from the shore, knew they had to either conquer or die, for they could not go back. Karin felt very much like one of Cortés' soldiers, with no way to go now but forward.

It was a fidgety day. With nothing to do but housework and fretting, Karin did both. She gave the bathroom a thorough cleaning, scrubbing the tub and making the toilet spotless. She vacuumed every carpet in the house – which didn't take long with the small one bedroom affair. The former garage was now a storage space, which she didn't have much in. Whoever had converted it either hadn't finished the job, or had intended it for storage all along, but either way it was fit only for storage, and there's only so much you can do to clean a storage room. She did the breakfast dishes – and then decided to wash the dishes that she didn't use often: Because they've gotten dusty, she told herself, not admitting that she was frightfully nervous.

By noon there simply wasn't any more housework to do. Had it been warmer she'd have gone out and dug in the flowerbeds, preparing them for planting, but there wasn't any point in that, not in December. Albuquerque's winters aren't bad, compared to places like North Dakota, but they're cold enough that flowers don't grow, and getting down on hands and knees to work the soil would be unpleasant.

She had no choice, finally, but to sit down in her chair and look at the wall. On the wall was a print of Jesus teaching beside the Sea of Galilee. She looked at it for a moment, and then – almost in despair – turned her head and watched her hand lift her Bible from the little table beside the chair. I don't believe in random guidance, she thought, as she opened the Bible without looking, and began reading where it had opened.

These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. You heard that I said to you, "I go away, and I will come to you." If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here. I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

Karin slowly closed the book, and rested her hand on the cover. The leather was smooth, worn from long use, and it felt as familiar to her hand as the words did to her heart. "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you," she repeated.

"Oh God, I need Your peace!" she cried out, aloud in the empty house.

With a sudden decision she laid the Bible aside, and slipped out of the chair and turned, kneeling and leaning her elbows on the cushion. "Lord God, I've brought everything to you – except this. I've prayed for my baby's health, for the means to care for it, for grace to teach it Your way. But I haven't prayed for strength in telling my brothers and sisters about my baby. You gave me this baby – you used a man I despise, a man who abused me, but You gave me the baby. I don't know why. I didn't ask for a baby, not then ... not now. But Your will prevails, and I want to do Your will.

"So I pray, my Lord, that You will give me strength to speak to the elders this afternoon. I pray that when the time comes You will give me strength to tell the church.

"And God, thank You for showing me my fault. I don't know why You used Kevin, or even exactly how, but thank you for showing me my error, even through the means of someone like him." She smiled through her tears as she prayed. "I would never have chosen him as an instrument, but You are wiser than I am."

When she rose from her knees Karin wasn't any less scared, but her nervousness had vanished. The enormity of the situation remained, but God had indeed given her His peace, a peace that the world could not give, and would not give if it could.

A little before 2 o'clock Karin pulled into the church parking lot and sat for a moment in her car, clenching the steering wheel and breathing a last prayer for courage. It was a blustery day, with dark blots of cloud that periodically came between her and the sun and made the chill wind even colder. December in Albuquerque isn't like December in Alaska, but it isn't necessarily a pleasant thing either.

She got out of her car, knowing she had to go through with it, and buzzed at the door. With no one able to watch the front door they kept it locked, and let people in as necessary. It wasn't a bad part of town – in fact, it was in a pretty nice part of the Northeast Heights – but Albuquerque's gangs were everywhere, and there was no sense in endangering people needlessly. There were two gang-related shootings that had affected people Karin knew, and both them had been in the Heights rather than the much-maligned South Valley. The caution the church displayed was not paranoia.