Part 16 (1/2)

Tim Jacobs WAS LYING in Angela's bed, switching channels on her television set, when he came to a talking-head shot. A conservative-looking man in his early fifties appeared to be holding a book, and Tim squinted in the darkness to make it out. He'd gone through most of a bottle of wine in the past two hours, and he had to work to make sense of the imagery on the screen.

Angela was down on her exercise mat beside the bed doing stretches. She looked up, annoyed. ”Hey, c'mon, change the channel. I can't stand those TV preachers.”

But for some reason, Tim couldn't bring himself to turn it. The preacher man-if he was a preacher-wasn't one of those big-hair types. His eyes had a look of compa.s.sion and ... something else. Urgency, maybe.

Tim let the remote fall to his side. ”I was gonna be a preacher once.” His words slurred together, and his eyes struggled to focus. ”Gonna tell the world about Jesus.”

Angela sat up and stared at him, her eyes mocking him as a single burst of laughter broke through her pursed lips. ”You? A preacher?”

130 MIN.

Something in her tone irritated Tim, set his teeth on edge and brought his pain close to the surface. He reached for the wine bottle and poured himself another gla.s.s. Some of the liquid sloshed onto the bed, and Angela grimaced. ”Hey, babe, you've really got to back off on the wine. A little bit's good for you-not this much.”

Her words were measured and in control. Though she drank with him now and then, she did not share his urgency for alcohol, an urgency that seemed to grow with each pa.s.sing day. She had even tried to limit his drinking in ways he found profoundly annoying. Who did she think she was, anyway? His drinking wasn't a dependency or an illness like Uncle Frank's problem. It was a life preserver.

Every drink did a bit more to keep thoughts of Kari from suffocating him.

Tim looked around the room. The walls seemed to be closing in on them. Angela's bedroom had always been small, especially with her exercise equipment in the corner. Now it was getting claustrophobic. He downed half the gla.s.s in a single, practiced gulp and shook his head, trying to clear his vision.

He hated the way his words ran together when he drank, hated the nausea and headaches and the way his body demanded more whenever the effects of the drink wore off. As a way of proving to himself that he was in control, he'd kept his drinking down to three or four nights a week and an occasional swig from the flask in his desk drawer at work.

Nothing more than what his coworkers might do.

The preacher was saying something, and Tim squinted again, trying to follow the man's words. ”The message of Christ's love is found in Isaiah, chapter sixty-one,” the man was saying. ”G.o.d himself will restore the crumbling foundations of your life. He will give you beauty for ashes. He'll provide redemption, no matter who you are, where you are....”

Angela huffed, and Tim turned in time to see her roll her eyes. She chuckled in a condescending way.

”What's so funny?”

131 She grinned at him, and through his blurred eyes she swayed like a person caught out at sea. ”Don't you get what he's doing?”

The room started to spin, and Tim felt a growing frustration deep inside. He set his winegla.s.s down and scowled at her. ”Get what?”

She pointed at the television screen. ”Exactly what we talked about in cla.s.s.

It's just manipulation just another ad campaign.” She lifted herself from the floor in a single fluid movement and climbed up beside him on the bed. She snuggled close to him, kissing him on the shoulder and neck and finally on his lips before finis.h.i.+ng her thought. ”First he tells you how awful things are, makes you feel really bad about it; then he,tells you what you ought to do.” She smiled. ”Selling G.o.d is like selling diet pills. `Oh, you're so fat. Here, I've got what you need.”'

”What are you talking about?” He wasn't quite sure what diet pills had to do with evangelists or G.o.d, and his growing dizziness wasn't helping him understand her any better.

”I mean-” she kissed him again-”that we don't need what he's selling because what we've got here is beautiful just the way it is.”

She looked at him and seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Then she sighed hard and leaned back on her elbows, stretching long, pale legs in front of her. She rotated her ankles a few times, then turned back to him, propping herself on one forearm, her blue eyes focused. ”Listen, Tim, I know you're having some bad feelings about ... the divorce. But you've got to stop letting it get to you. You need to take care of yourself. You could start going to the gym with me ... get some exercise. That would help, don't you think?”

Tim stared at her, bristling a little at her solicitous tone, and realized for the first time that the pa.s.sion he felt for her was fading. What had seemed brilliant and intoxicating less than a week ago now seemed cynical and selfserving.

”Don't get me wrong,” she was saying. ”I still think you're gorgeous.” She smiled and moved toward him again, kissing him, 132 obviously intent on more of what they'd spent the past weeks doing.

But suddenly he knew he was going to be sick. He gently pushed her off and stumbled into the bathroom.

The first wave of vomit dropped him to his knees.

”Are you okay?” She sounded worried, but there was no way he could answer.

By the time the convulsions stopped, his head was so far inside the toilet that his chin was nearly touching the water. He gasped for air and slowly eased himself back to a kneeling position. Angela's words and the preacher's wove together in his head, tormenting him. He'll give you beauty for ashes.... It's just manipulation, just another ad campaign.... G.o.d himself will restore the crumbling foundations.... What we have is beautiful just like it is.

He stayed there a long time, sitting on the floor beside the toilet. Angela knocked at the bathroom door a few times, her voice first concerned, then annoyed. He replied with single syllables. After a while she stopped knocking, and finally he felt the apartment grow silent.

Fear settled over him then, thick and ROPE LIKE. It wrapped itself around his throat and made it difficult to breathe. He stood up, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and used the walls to help him navigate his way back to the bedroom.

The room was dark. Angela lay with her back to him, her hands tucked under her head like a child, her lean body stiff and still. He couldn't tell if she was asleep or pretending, but something about her was different. This was the woman who had sent his body into a fever pitch of desire, but now she made him feel sad and old and somehow ... disgusted. The choking feeling intensified, and he absently brought his hands up to his neck as if there might be some way to relieve the pressure.

I'm choking to death. Help me, G.o.d.

In response he felt the faintest nudging, something else the television preacher had said. Tim dropped to the floor, his eyes closed, as he tried to recall the words.

133 Repent ... flee the bonds of the enemy.

Tim held his breath. Had his memory finally kicked in, or was that the Lord talking to him? Now, after all these days of silence? After all Tim had done to walk away from him?

Tim circled his hands around his throat and tried to swallow. Yes, that was it.

Bonds of the enemy. That's what was choking him.

He struggled to his feet, found his clothes and shoes, and managed to get dressed. It was after three o'clock in the morning, and he needed to be at school by nine. He trudged into Angela's living room and spent the next few hours dozing in a chair. Before Angela was awake, he crept out, and for the first time since leaving Kari, he drove home.

His key still fit in the front door-something he'd wondered about. He glanced around. ”Kari?”

There was no answer. He tried again, this time making his way slowly toward their bedroom. The bed was made, and Tim realized Kari was probably still at her parents' house. He felt a pang of irritation, then a wave of remorse. How could he blame her for not wanting to be home?

As he looked around the room they had shared, an image came to mind, then another and another. He and Kari saying their vows before Pastor Mark at Clear Creek Community Church. He and Kari walking hand in hand through the park. He and Kari laughing and talking and ...

The choking fear was back, and Tim sank down on the clean bedspread. His eyes fell on the nightstand and a book that still lay there, calling him, reminding him of his other life, the one he'd lived before meeting Angela. He stood up and stared at the book. It was leatherbound and had his name engraved on it.

His Bible, the one Pastor Mark had given him when he joined the church after becoming engaged to Kari.

Like a man clinging to a life rope, Tim sat down gingerly on his bed and clutched the book to his chest. Help me, G.o.d ... I'm not going to make it, 134 How long had it been? Tim thought back and remembered months and years when he'd pretended to read ... told Kari he was reading. But really? Truly? He couldn't remember the last time he had read his Bible.

His hands shook from the hangover. He clutched the Bible more tightly and then steadied his hands enough to open the front cover. There were words scrawled inside, words from Pastor Mark.

Tim shook his head, forcing his mind to clear at least enough to make out the writing. He looked again, lowering his face to the open page, scrutinizing the wording. It began with a quote from Isaiah: ”But now, this is what the Lord says ... `Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.”'

Underneath the quote the pastor had added these words: ”Remember, Tim, G.o.d's offer of redemption is forever. Pastor Mark.” Redemption? G.o.d's offer of redemption? Tim closed his eyes, and drums began beating somewhere close to his temples. He had the strongest sense that if he so much as took one hand off the Bible, a cloud of demons might descend on him then and there and take him straight to h.e.l.l.

Redemption? Tim looked again and saw that Pastor Mark had scribbled the church phone number under his inscription. He closed his eyes again. The room was spinning. Not fast like before, but just enough to build within him another wave of nausea, worse than the last.