The Murder of Sara Barton (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 1) by Lance McMillian (primary phonics txt) 📗

“What about Job? He lost his family, too. Yet he said about God: ‘Though he slay me, I will trust in Him.’ There’s life still to be lived, Chance. God’s not done with you.”

“Job? Really? I love you, man, but you’re talking to me about things you can’t possibly understand.”

“That’s not true.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about, and the suggestion that he somehow understands the experience of my anguish angers me. I tell him as much. Tears well up in his eyes. My brother is not a crier, not one to use cheap emotionalism to manipulate people to win a point. Whatever’s motivating this display is real. The weirdness of the moment makes me uncomfortable. At a loss for words, I sit like a statue waiting for him to make the next move. At that moment, the food is served. Neither of us picks up our fork.

Ben finally asks, “You remember Jenny Baker?”

“Sure. Your girlfriend in college. I thought the two of you would get married.”

“Yeah, so did I. We dated for a long time, and I let lust get the better of me. She got pregnant.”

The disclosure floors me. The story is human enough but shocks all the same. Now the two of us sit across from each other joined together in the revelation of a long-kept secret—me surprised by what he told me, him surprised that he told me at all. But Ben is only half-finished. Part of me senses where this is going. I keep quiet to allow him to finish telling it in his own time. After a spell, he shares the rest of it.

“Jenny told me the news, and of course, I wanted to do the right thing, get married, and have the baby. I asked her on the spot. She said no. She was going to get an abortion. I couldn’t believe it. Tried to talk her out of it. Begged her not to do it. Broke down crying in front of her more than once. But she wouldn’t budge. She was going to get an abortion. Her heart was set on law school.”

He looks at me with a slight accusation that I’m somewhat responsible for every person who ever decided to go to law school. His confession tracks what I figured. I digest the information, chaos swirling around my skull. Nothing is as it seems. The foundations of my life crumble one by one. Maybe they all are already gone, and I’m no longer even standing, like the cartoon coyote who doesn’t realize the bottom has already fallen out from under him.

Ben says, “Abortion. Can you believe it? ‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.’ Psalms. My child. Aborted. ‘And the wages of sin is death.’”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. Sorry to dump all of this on you now. You were in high school at the time, too busy chasing cheerleaders.”

“Caught a few of them, too.”

Ben allows himself a soft chuckle. He asks, “Any of them get pregnant?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Maybe you were doing it wrong.”

The joke allows us to transition to eating. I do my part and send the cold food on its way to my indifferent stomach. Ben pays less attention to his plate, nibbling here and there. The preoccupation on his face tells me he has more to say, but isn’t sure how to go about it. I tell him to go ahead and say it, knowing that he wants to make another pitch to save his wayward brother. Thankful for my permission, he looks at me with a level of earnestness in his eyes that would make angels weep. I wonder if I’ve ever felt anything so pure in my entire life. He begins.

“I insisted on taking Jenny to the abortion clinic. The punishment of sitting there—burning with hot rage and limitless despair—struck me as just. I wanted to hurt. I deserved it. I had pledged my life to God, but then deserted Him to satisfy my own lustful cravings. I got home that night and tried to see my future. I told myself that I couldn’t go into the ministry with an aborted child on my record. I was now disqualified from His service.”

Ben pauses—taking a deep breath and a sip of water. He didn’t expect to travel the old road of these memories over this lunch, and he’s still trying to find his way.

“But I realized then that I had nothing else. The thought of not serving Jesus broke me. I couldn’t carry the weight—the dead child, losing my future wife, losing my future vocation, the anger, the self-hatred—I couldn’t carry it anymore. I had to give it to God. And then I heard the still voice of God deep in my soul: ‘Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep.’ I saw the way forward. My condition wasn’t permanent. That’s when I spent that month serving in the orphanage in Haiti. Remember? I had to take the focus off of myself. God rebuilt me brick by brick, and it all started with losing the woman I loved and the death of my child.”

He gives me a knowing look.

“It’s not the same thing,” I answer.

“It is to me.”

I believe he believes that. But I cannot equate his break-up with a girlfriend and the loss of the nameless fetus he never held to the violent killing of my family. The murder of Amber and Cale is the bell that cannot be unrung.

32

The Friday before trial and my pre-trial checklist is complete. I fiddle with my opening statement just to have something to do. The door to my office opens abruptly. Bobby flies through the entrance.

He likes to visit the offices of his subordinates. I reckon it appeals to his grassroots pretensions. Odds are he read about the practice in some leadership book. He wants to discuss Barton.

He asks, “You ready?”

“We’re ready.”

“No surprises?”

“There are always surprises. We