Tales From The Cross

      Angela Gains was cordial but cold when her husband, Marcus, came down for breakfast that morning. She turned away from the coffee maker and glowered in his direction. He stretched and yawned in his tank top and boxers, like nothing was amiss. But Angela was in the mood to talk.
      “Honey,” she said. “You know I really don’t approve of hard liquor in this house.”
      He smirked as though it was some kind of joke. “Good morning to you too.”
      Angela’s austere expression didn’t change, and the grin fell from his African face.
      “Marcus,” she said, trying not to scold. “I know you had reason to celebrate last night, we both did. But…” She hesitated, fearful of discouraging him so early in his newfound, and long prayed for faith.
      “I didn’t have nothing to drink last night,” he said in a perplexed, defensive tone. “And I certainly didn’t bring no hard liquor into this house. You know I ain’t touched the stuff in years.”
      “Really?” Angela asked through gritted teeth. She adjusted her bath robe tightly around her chest and strode to the dining nook near the back door of their modest sized house. She stopped behind the table, rested her hands firmly on the back of one of the wooden chairs, and faced her husband once again. “Then explain this.”
      Marcus shied away a bit at the sight of the bottle in the center of the table. He shifted like a man confronted with guilty truths. “Angela, baby, I swear. I don’t know where that bottle came from.”
      “Don’t you ‘baby’ me when you’re lying,” Angela said.
      “I ain’t lying.”
      “You’re sloppy handwriting’s all over the label, and you expect me to believe that you don’t know nothing about it? Please!”
      “My what?” Marcus asked.
      “You heard me.” She picked up the bottle and read. “‘Five men left this fifth of gin. Only four came back again.’ A cheery poem for a cheery drink.”
      Angela slammed the vile object back down on the table and glared at her husband.
      The chocolate hue had drained from his face. His eyes were wide and fixed on the bottle, as though he had caught the stare of a specter. Breaths came in shallow, irregular spurts, and his head began to shake from side to side in an unspoken, “It can’t be!”
      “Marcus?”
      He didn’t answer, and looked as though he couldn’t.
      “Marcus, baby, what is it? What’s wrong?”
      “Nothing,” he said at last, not sounding at all convincing. He shot towards the backdoor and checked the lock. Just as rapidly, he unlocked the door, opened it, and checked the back yard.
      “‘Nothing?’ What do you mean, ‘nothing’?”
      He didn’t answer, but his unnerved demeanor was becoming contagious.
      “Marcus, you’re starting to scare me.”
      “Nothing’s wrong,” he said as he came back inside and locked the door behind him. He glanced around at the windows, then took the bottle from the table and proceeded to pour the contents down the sink.
      “It’s nothing,” he said again. “Someone’s idea of a sick joke, that’s all.”
      “A sick joke?!” A vision of persons unknown breaching the sanctity of their home crossed Angela’s mind and her sense of security melted into a puddle of bubbling panic. Marcus—?”

      If only he would let her in. If only she could help him purge that dark corner of his heart. But, even in marriage there are areas where the spouse may not trespass.
      He reentered the kitchen a few moments later and tried to smile as though nothing had happened. “Coffee,” he said, catching the aroma in the air. Soon, he was standing by the pot pouring himself a cup.
      “Marcus,” Angela said, intending to say more.
      “Mmm,” he said, downing an oversized glup. He looked up at the clock on the wall. “Oh, gotta get ready for work.”
      “Marcus, I need to talk about this,” Angela said, knowing it would do little good. “Marcus…”
      But by then he had crossed the kitchen to the stairs and disappeared ascending two steps at a time. She heard the upstairs bathroom door close, the hum of the vent, and the squeak through the pipes followed closely by the flow of water spattering into the tub.
      She looked at the clock on the wall. It was 6:45 a.m.; a full hour before he had to leave for work. Angela looked back at the table where the bottle once stood, then at the door. “Lord Jesus,” she said, shaking her head, trying to find words to express the icy gremlin in her heart. None came, so she preoccupied herself with making breakfast.
      It was nearly cold when Marcus returned to the kitchen forty-five minutes later in his blue mechanic’s uniform. He crossed the room to the table where his scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee sat waiting.
      “Listen, Marcus,” Angela said.
      “Not now, baby,” Marcus said shoveling in a mouthful of eggs so that he could hardly speak. “I’m eating.”
      Angela opened her mouth to proceed, but thought better of it.
      “Later,” he said, then nearly swallowed a slice of toast whole.
      “Heard that before.”
      “Girl, I’m eating.”
      She pursed tight lips around the words she so desperately wanted to throw in his face. You always do this! Stop shutting me out! Stop pretending that everything’s fine! Despite the protestations of her heart, Angela opted to let him finish.
      Marcus continued eating as though he hadn’t been properly fed for days. This succeeded in keeping his mouth too full to talk, but it also emptied his plate faster than usual. In five minutes he’d finished, though he still chewed the last mouthful as he carried the dishes to the sink. A final swig of coffee washed the last morsels away.
      “Marcus,” she said, beginning again.
      “Not now, baby, gotta go to work.”
      “You have ten minutes,” she said in protest. “And I really need to talk about—”
      “The boss wants us in early. Something about a meeting, or inventory, or stuff like that.”
      Typical; always ready with an excuse. “But—”
      “Gotta go.” He leaned in to give her a kiss good-bye, gathered his lunch box, and proceeded to the back door.
      But Angela couldn’t let him go; not this time. She needed to talk about the bottle, about the intruder, about anything. This time, silence was not acceptable.
      “Marcus, if someone broke into our house, then don’t you think we should call the police?”
      The word seemed to arrest him. “I said forget about it.”
      “But—”
      “I said,” Marcus repeated, though Angela knew the guards around the vault were doing the talking, “forget about it.”
      The door closed.
      Angela stood alone in the kitchen and looked around at the beige walls that once felt safe. Forget about it? Not likely. She locked the door behind Marcus, checked the windows, and imagined intruders around every corner. Trembling hands tightened the robe once more, a security blanket around her thundering heart.
      “Lord, Jesus,” she said again, still struggling for words. “Lord, Jesus, what do I do now?”

      Marcus hung up the phone with unnecessary force for the third time, and Angela wondered if it would need to be remounted after tonight. She looked up from the stove. Marinara simmered in a sauce pan, bubbling like the disquieting questions in her own heart. Fine, baby, everything’s fine. The compulsory grin he gave her when he returned home told a different story.
      Then came the phone calls, one after another, each ending with a frustrated slam of the receiver. The boiling pot of spaghetti made his hushed words difficult to over hear.
      Marcus dialed again, as Angela left the stove to take dinner plates from the cabinet.
      “Terrell? It’s me, Marcus. We used to hang back in the day… Yeah, that’s right. Listen I wanted to ask about…” Angela took her time in returning to the stove, and Marcus seemed to notice. His voice nearly dropped to a whisper. “…something.”
      It was nearly impossible to hear anymore, so she drained the pasta, and divided it into two portions.
      Steam towered over the sink. Marcus raised his voice.
      “I know but… I needed to ask… alright. Thanks anyway.”
      Slam.
      Marcus joined Angela at the table, and save for the occasional slurp or scraping fork, dinner passed in silence. He didn’t mention the bottle or his phone calls. She didn’t mention the unsatisfactory visit from the police, or the host of concerned coworkers she now had at the church, or the trouble she had in answering their questions as she had no answers herself, or her frustration in the knowledge that no answers were coming because she wasn’t allowed in the vault.
      Their eyes met, briefly. He looked away. She looked down at her plate. Even such a common place dish seemed surreal in her overturned world. She looked back at him, hoping against hope that he would be willing to talk. He looked everywhere else. A fork scraped with a squeak. A long strand of spaghetti disappeared like a secret snake into the burrow between his lips. Silence.
      He placed his dirty dish in the sink and disappeared to the living room without a word. The Simpson’s were on TV, but Marcus’s jovial laughter—another of his many defensive mechanisms—seemed lessened. A few minutes later, Angela joined him. Neither said anything. After a few reality shows and the local news, Marcus finally spoke.
      “I’m going to bed.”
      She watched him ascend the stairs, the physical distance mirroring the oceans of silence between them. If only he would open the vault. If only he would call off the guards. If only he would talk, just talk and clear the air. A few honest and open words could sponge the silent oceans dry, but instead she sat alone, adrift, and muted.
      Finally, she planted her face in her hands and released an ocean of her own. What else was there to do?
      “Lord, Jesus, help me.”
      What else was there to do, but weep and pray?

an argument, at least they were talking. She retrieved her slippers, gathered the broom and dustpan from the utility closet, and cleaned up the broken
glass. Outside, she could hear Marcus rummaging through the cans, opening bags and sorting through waste. From the sound of things, the search wasn’t going well.
      A vindictive smile crossed her face as she turned her attention to the morning coffee. Once it was brewing, she took a rag from the rag drawer, and began to mop up the gin. The mere smell of the booze was making her nauseous, and she was grateful when the pungent aroma of the coffee began to mask the odor.
      She had just pulled down her favorite coffee mug from the cupboard when Marcus reentered the kitchen, his forearms soiled and slimy.
      “I swear I didn’t dig the bottle out of the trash,” he said, though the boldness had gone from his voice.
      “Where is it, then?” she asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
      He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe, whoever it is, dug the bottle out and used it again.”
      “Maybe, ‘whoever it is’ needs to wash his hands,” Angela said as she stepped away from the sink so he could clean up.
      Marcus shook his head as he filled his hands with soap from the dispenser. “Baby, I’m telling the truth.”
      “Don’t lie to me, Marcus, or next time I’ll let you wipe your own booze off the wall.”
      “What? Wait.” Marcus stopped lathering his hands. His face seemed to light up.
      “No, you wait,” Angela said, but Marcus ignored her.
      “The bottle was empty.”
      “No, it wasn’t empty! I just wiped that foul drink off the wall like I told you!” She pulled the rag from the sink and sniffed it. “I rinsed it four times and I can still smell the stink of your booze.”
      “The booze I poured down the sink yesterday?”
      She shook the rag in his face. “No, the booze I just wiped off the wall!”
      “From today’s bottle?”
      “Yes,” she said, throwing her hands in the air, relieved that he finally understood.
      “But yesterday’s bottle was empty when I threw it out.” Marcus rinsed his hands under the faucet. “I poured the gin down the sink. You were standing right here when I did it.”
      He turned the water off and shook the excess from his hands. Then he walked toward the refrigerator and made use of the towel which hung from its handle.
      Angela shrugged. “So you got a new bottle.” It was easy enough to figure out.
      “Then why can’t I find the old one?” Marcus asked.
      She placed one hand on her hip and cocked her head displaying attitude. “Maybe you didn’t look hard enough.”
      Marcus shot her a critical look.
      Angela looked away. “I know what I know.”
      “You don’t know nothing.”
      How right he was. She didn’t know anything because he wasn’t telling her anything. Her unwanted ignorance was exactly her point, precisely the problem, and completely his fault.
      “You brought a bottle into this house—”
      “No, I didn’t.” He locked eyes with her, and didn’t blink. He turned on his heels and stormed from the room. “I can’t explain it, but it wasn’t me.”
      “Then, how…”
      Angela resigned herself once more to the silence. The irresistible force had raged against the immovable object, and the match resulted in a draw. Each contestant went to their separate corners and brooded for over an hour.
      Angela ate breakfast at the table, but Marcus stood by the sink. A fork scrapped scrambled eggs from a plate. Saliva mixed with bacon. The volume seemed amplified by the conversational void, so that it was a relief when he finally left for work. Angela had nearly lost her appetite, and she certainly wasn’t able to stomach his attitude, or his lies.
      Yet, a part of her dared to believe him. Of course, if he was telling the truth, this meant that an unknown third party had free reign of their home—a third party with a peculiar compulsion for leaving gin behind like some kind of booze fairy. She tried to shake the thought from her head.
      “Lord, Jesus, what are you doing?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.
      None came.
      Angela rose from her seat and set her plates in the sink on top of the ones Marcus left behind. She then turned her attention to the coffee maker. The filter was still wet, so she allowed it to drip over the sink. Next, she pulled out the kitchen trash can to dispose of the spent filter, glanced into the receptacle, and froze. Jumbled in with the rest of the broken glass was the bottle’s label. And on the label…
      Why hadn’t she noticed this before?

      “What?! Woman, that is the stupidest thing you’ve ever accused me of doing! Why would I—”
      “Lying is a sin,” she said, perhaps a little more forcefully than she meant to. “It’s not behavior the saints of God should be associated with, and being one of those saints now, you’ll need to change some things.” She broke eye contact as her words hit a little too close to home. Her own behavior was likely in need of adjustment. She backed off a little.
      “I ain’t lying,” he said. She said nothing, and the lack of a retort allowed him to lower his haunches.
      Finally, he ruefully admitted, “And I ain’t no saint, either.”
      “None of us are. But with God’s help we can be. So let’s calm down, try this again, and this time, let’s try the truth.”
      “I…” Marcus’s fury raged to life anew, and he shot up from his seat with disregard for both the table and the chair. Before Angela could say anything, he had stormed through the kitchen and into the next room.
      “Marcus,” she said as she stood to pursue him.
      “I can’t explain the bottle!” he said, stepping back into the kitchen and mouthing his words so clearly that a deaf person could have understood. “That is the truth!”
      “The whole truth?” she asked.
      He said nothing.
      “Can you explain the poem?”
      Marcus’ face went flush again at the sound of the question, and Angela could see his mind search for a prudent answer.
      “Lying is a sin,” she said, trying to coax him.
      A pause. “It’s nothing.” And with that, he turned to go.
      “Marcus…”
      But by the time she’d followed him into the living room, he had retreated into the front room, then the front hall, up the stairs, into the bedroom, back into the hall, back down the stairs, and once more into the kitchen.
      “Marcus, talk to me.”
      The back door slammed behind him, and Angela decided to let him go. She fought back the tears as he left her adrift yet again. She took his plate in her hand and seriously considered smashing it against the wall, but she set it back down and settled for a scream instead. It helped, even if all it accomplished was to calm her down enough to cover the plates in plastic wrap without destroying them.
      She wiped down the table, did the dishes, cleaned the counters, and swept the floor, though it didn’t really need it. Outside, she could hear Marcus pounding his hammer against something in the garage. From the sounds of it, it was a frustrated pounding against several somethings—anything unfortunate enough to be within striking distance.
      Angela abandoned her busy work and sat at the table with her Bible. She opened it to the book of James, hoping to find some answers. Consider it joy when you face various trials, it said, for the testing of your faith makes it stronger. She gave a sigh, allowing the encouragement of the scriptures to sink in. But James had more to say. If anyone lacks wisdom, let them ask. So, she did. With tears streaming down her face and staining the pages—with the frustrated banging from the garage echoing the beating of her heart—she pleaded with God to grant her the wisdom she needed tonight.
      And in a small, single-serve portion, it came.
      Angela allowed herself to be silent, listening for a still small voice.
      Wham! Bang! Clang! Crash! The cacophony in the garage drew her attention, and in the ruckus she discerned words in a language that transcends human speech. He couldn’t let her in the vault, because he’d locked himself inside. The fortress he’d built for himself had become a prison from which there must have seemed to be no escape. Empathy for Marcus mixed with disdain for her own behavior as she realized that each swing of the hammer was a frustrated cry for help.
      She wept for him until there were no more tears to cry. And when she no longer had the strength to pray, she climbed up the stairs to the bedroom. The pounding in the garage fell silent, having said its peace, but as she went to bed, Marcus did not join her.
      Hours passed in the quite dark. Yet, Angela tossed and turned, fighting for sleep which refused to come. Five men left this fifth of gin. Only four came back again. What could this mean? She’d heard the stories of his wilder days, before the tour with Uncle Sam straightened him out. Yet, even the details of his criminal record were not as foreboding as the poem in question. Sleep continued to tease her from a distance, drifting in and out of her body but never lingering long enough to count. Her mind would not be silent. She couldn’t get comfortable as she lay prone, then supine, then on her left side, then on her right, then supine again. The shadowy ceiling loomed over head and she stared at it through eyes that refused to stay shut. Again on her side, she looked at the clock and groaned. It was only 12:32 a.m.
      Suddenly, a noise from the kitchen roused her to attention. Ears strained against the night as her thoughts raced through any number of paranoid possibilities. The booze fairy prowler? A different intruder? She considered the bat in the bedroom closet.
      But then the suspect coughed with Marcus’s voice. At once, her heart-rate returned to normal, and she flopped back down on the bed. She heard the microwave door close, followed by a few beeps and a soft whirring hum. Her own stomach rumbled. Perhaps, a midnight snack would be good for both of them.
      She rose, wrapped herself in her house coat, and descended to the kitchen. Her eyes squinted against the bright light, but she quickly found Marcus, stripped down to his boxers and tank top, leaning against the humming microwave on the counter. He grimaced at the sight of his wife.
      “Can I fix you something?” she asked.
      “Got it,” he said, gesturing to the microwave behind him. It beeped a moment later. He opened the door and removed the reheated leftovers.
      “I’ll get you some milk,” she said and pulled a glass out of the cupboard before Marcus could object. She poured the milk and set it down on the table before him.
      “I don’t want to talk about it.”
      “Then don’t.”
      And for twenty more minutes they didn’t. The microwave heated Angela’s food filling the kitchen with the aroma of her cooking, and she joined her husband at the table. They ate. Teeth chewed. Forks scraped the plates. But this time Angela was at peace with the din, as though the squeaks and crunches—like the thunderous blows of the hammer—were a language all their own. I still love you. I’m still hurting. We’ll take it slow, together. Teeth crunched. Forks squeaked. It was nice to be talking again.
      “Would you like some more milk?”
      Marcus just looked at her, then at his empty glass, then back at her. An exasperated chuckle burst from his mouth, forcing it into a tired grin. “Honestly, after these last few days I think I could use something a bit stronger.” As soon as he’d said this, his eyes went wide, the grin vanished, and his posture slackened.
      “Sorry, dear,” she said, repressing a grin. “We did have some gin in the house, but some idiot smashed the bottle against the wall yesterday morning.”
      He smiled, and she returned it. Joking about the bottle seemed to ease the tension between them.
      “Marcus,” she said seriously, cautiously, kindly. “I really need to understand what’s going on.”
      Marcus threw his hands up as though to surrender. “I told you, I can’t explain it.”
      “Then let’s try to solve it together.”
      Marcus paused, nodded, relaxed.
      “Someone brought a bottle of gin into this house.”
      Marcus shook his head and raised his hands. “It wasn’t me.”
      “And it wasn’t me,” Angela said, careful not to sound accusing. “So unless it magically appeared out of nowhere, which is rather unlikely, someone else brought it in. Now the police said—”
      “The police?!”
      Angela fell silent for a moment. This expected reaction was exactly why she didn’t mention it before. “I really need to understand what’s going on.”
      Marcus opened his mouth, closed it again, and honored the truce.
      “They said there was no sign of forced entry, so it was probably someone who had a key.”
      “Jason and Alicia?” Marcus said, naming two of their closest friends. “Why in the world would they do anything like this? I mean, Jason might know about…” he caught himself. “No. It can’t be them.”
      “What might Jason know about?”
      “He doesn’t.” Marcus shook his head. “Forget I mentioned it.”
      Angela needed answers, but knew that Marcus wasn’t ready to give them. It was the best lead she had, but reluctantly, she also honored the truce.
      “Who else has a key?” Angela asked.
      Marcus thought on it for a moment, then shrugged and shook his head.
      She searched for another possibility. “Could you be sleepwalking?”
      “Why me? Maybe you’re sleepwalking.”
      “But it was your handwriting on the label.”
      “What if I am?” Marcus said. “Where did I get the booze? Are you suggesting that I drove to the liquor store, bought the bottle, and then drove home while I was sleeping?”
      Angela didn’t say anything. Her long-shot theory was getting longer by the second.
      Marcus laughed. “Baby, if that’s what’s happening, please don’t tell our insurance company.”
      She smirked, and then silence covered them both as they busied their tired minds on the mystery before them.
      “Maybe…” Angela said, starting to present another thought, but the guess collapsed in her mind.
      “Listen,” Marcus said, his face serious. “Someone’s trying to shake me, that’s all. They’re playing a joke or something, but we’ll find out who it is and deal with it. Until then, we should probably get some sleep.”
      It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the best one they had been able to come up with so far. More importantly, the silence between them was broken, and for the moment, that was enough to give her peace.
      Marcus stood up and left the table, beckoning his wife to join him. She sighed, took what was left of her milk and stood. She drained the glass in a single gulp and the put it in the sink.
      “Let me clear the dishes and I’ll be right up,” she said.
      “That’s fine.”
      She turned back to the table when her eyes met a sight that stopped her heart. Her legs refused to support her weight, and though she tried not to fall, she collapsed by the sink all the same.
      Marcus noticed and rushed to her aid.
      “Baby, you alright? What happened?”
      “If you still want that stiff drink,” she said in a trance-like voice. “I think I might join you.”
      “What? Girl, you don’t dr—” But then Marcus saw it too. There, in the center of the dining room table, towering like a steeple over the plates and his milk glass, stood a fifth of gin with two lines of his handwriting clearly visible on the label.

      “Try me,” Angela said, locking stares with her husband. Even her dulled senses could see the shame behind his eyes. He shook his head at first, refusing her challenge. However, she persisted. “We’re in this together, and whatever you’ve done, we’ll deal with it together.”
      He looked into her firm but loving gaze and sighed. After another drink, he began.
      “There was this girl, back in the day—a fine little thing. We used to say she could turn the head of the Pope. I mean, she was—”
      “I get the picture; she was fine; let’s continue.”
      Marcus shifted, cleared his throat. “Anyway, looking like she did she got all kinds of attention from all sorts of guys, including the ones who were up to no good. So one night she gets jumped on her way home by the kind of guy who didn’t take no for an answer. Of course, from the way we heard it, he wasn’t much the kind to ask. She didn’t know who did it—never got a good look at the guy, but he put her in the hospital for a week all the same.”
      Angela winced at the recounting of the crime. “Oh, sweet Jesus! Was she alright?”
      “She got better,” Marcus said with a shrug, “but after that, I wouldn’t say she was ever alright. Anyway, there was this guy named Bruce who moved into the neighborhood a few weeks before this happened— suspicious character, never really fit in with the rest of us. The cops took him in for questioning, and let him go. But, everyone in the hood had seen the way he looked at her. We all knew that he was the one who did it.
      “So me and my boys got together and decided to teach him a lesson. But a different group of guys had the same idea, and they got to him first. The cops were in the area and when they saw what was going on they put an end to it. Them defending the creep like that really riled up the neighborhood.” Marcus shuddered, as though the very memory was painful. “And that’s when I came up with my idea.”
      “What idea?” Angela asked.
      “We wanted to attack him outright, but we knew the cops would come down on us if we did and move him out of our reach to some safe house. So, me and my boys offered him our protection. He was eager to accept it, having been jumped once already. We acted like his friends for the next few weeks, earning his trust, going out together, drinking together, you name it. But he wasn’t yet a member of the gang, you see.
      He hadn’t proven his loyalty to us, as we had to him.
      “So one night the five of us sat down around the kitchen table, sharing a bottle of gin, and talking about what kind of task we’re going to have him do to prove he’s one of us. We decided he’d have to go and break into Old Man Malcolm’s house. The idea unsettled him, but we promised we’d watch his back while he did it, and he had no reason not to believe us.
      “What he didn’t know is that we agreed on this test before hand, and leaked it to a few people we couldn’t trust to keep a secret. The grapevine would take care of the rest. And sure enough, when Bruce got to Old Man Malcolm’s house, every tough guy in the neighborhood was waiting, ready to jump him, just like he did to that poor girl. They say he called our names and cried like a baby, but none of us ever intended to come to his rescue. We weren’t even there. In fact, we were back at the table with our bottle of booze before a phone call told us that he’d been taken to the hospital.” Marcus’ eyes sank with shame and regret.
      “He died in the emergency room the next morning—at 1:03 a.m.”
      Angela was horror struck. “Baby, that’s terrible.”
      “He was innocent,” Marcus said, yelling at himself for his own stupidity. “Two days later another girl was attacked the same way as the first, and this time they got the guy. He confessed to both rapes, which means…” he choked on the words for a moment, “…which means we got the wrong guy. We never thought he’d be killed; we just wanted him to spend a week in the hospital; to know what it was like to walk down the street looking over your shoulder. Can’t say we were sorry to hear he was dead—at least not at first—but we never meant for it to go as far as it did.”
      Marcus paused for a moment, staring into his empty glass before he continued his lament. “An innocent man died because of us—because of me, and there ain’t a day that goes by I don’t remember. I can’t forgive myself for that night, and I was hoping God could. But when I asked Him to, He sent me this.” Marcus took the bottle in his meaty hand and held it up. “Five men left this fifth of gin, but four of us came back murderers. I guess innocent blood is a sin God can’t handle. Either that, or I ain’t earned His forgiveness yet.”
      Angela was dumbstruck. She’d knew he’d done some regrettable things, but none of those events were quite as heinous as this. The mystery of the poem was solved, but for the moment, she hated knowing the answer.
      A drop of water fell from the faucet and into the sink with a loud crash. Somewhere in the distant night a dog barked. Otherwise, the kitchen was completely still until Angela managed the words, “I still love you.” Marcus turned his attention away from her.
      “I’m going to bed,” he said getting up from the table. Angela faked a smile and nodded. He kissed her forehead and disappeared up the stairs to the bedroom leaving her alone in the kitchen. She was glad for it. Her mind spun frantically, trying to process what she’d just heard. A tear rolled down her cheek, followed by another, and another. She finally buried her face in her hands and began to weep bitterly, helplessly. “Dear God,” she said as torrents of sorrow and pain flowed down her face. “What are we going to do?”

      The following day felt more like an awkward dream. She got up shortly after Marcus left for his job at the garage. Confession seemed to be good for his soul; he slept. She didn’t.
      She went to her part-time job at the church, and her grim visage told the staff that things had gone from bad to worse. They pressed her for updates on Marcus and his mysterious bottle. She was too tired not to talk.
      “The pastor’s coming by tonight after dinner,” she told Marcus later that evening.
      “Why?” he asked, letting his fork fall noisily against his plate.
      Angela avoided eye-contact and shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
      “You told the people at the church about this? I knew it! Girl, this is why I didn’t want to say anything.”
      “I had to,” she said. “I don’t think this is something we can deal with on our own.”
      “Who says we need to deal with it?”
      “I do! You may not have a problem with a phantom bottle of gin appearing on the kitchen table every morning, but I’m not alright with that.”
      “It’s better than airing dirty laundry in front of the whole church!”
      “The pastor is not the whole church,” Angela said.
      Marcus shot her a disgruntled look. “But the church staff might as well be!”
      “He just wants to help,” she said. “Pastor Phillip counsels people all the time, and he never shares it with anyone. We can trust him.”
      Marcus still didn’t look thrilled with the idea.
      “What, Marcus? Would you rather open a liquor store that only sells one bottle per day?”
      “The thought crossed my mind.”
      This time it was Angela who shot the disgruntled look.
      He finally consented. “Alright, alright. We’ll hear what the man has to say.”
      An hour later, they had taken their seats in the living room. Angela and Pastor Phillip sat on the couch, while Marcus tried to get comfortable in his usual recliner, which didn’t seem to fit him right this evening. Perhaps it was the presence of the bottle that made him uneasy, a spire of guilt on the coffee table, his sins laid bare for the world to see. The sacred vault in his heart had been breached, and though he wore a tie and slacks out of respect for the minister’s visit, Angela was sure he must have felt naked.
      His nervous eyes met hers. She smiled her support from the far end of the couch. His mouth turned up in a sheepish grin.
      Yet, Pastor Phillip’s warm, understanding demeanor worked to ease the tension in the room. He was a big man with dark chocolate skin and a head fully crowned with the honorable white strands of wisdom. Wrinkles in his face spoke to years of lessons learned the hard way—an honored graduate from the school of hard knocks.
      “I suppose Angela told you everything,” Marcus said, looking thoroughly ashamed of himself. Pastor Phillip gave a small shrug. “You feel responsible for an innocent man’s death,” he said in his deep, resonating voice. “You can’t forgive yourself, and so you don’t believe that God can forgive you either. The bottle here serves to confirm your suspicions. Is that everything?”
      “Basically.”
      The older gentleman shifted himself on the couch, and began. “Son, what you did was wrong, and I know you know that. I can tell just by looking at you. You’d take it back if you could, but you can’t. Am I right?”
      The younger man nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
      Pastor Phillip smiled and leaned forward, positioning himself on the edge of his seat. His feet rooted themselves to the floor as though for leverage. Angela could tell it was a powerful word that burned in his belly, and she knew it was going to come out in a powerful way.
      “Marcus, my precious brother in Christ, let me explain something to you. Your sins were forgiven at the cross, and I mean all of them.”
      Marcus shook his head. “Hate to disagree, sir, but the bottle says different.”
      “It’s lying.” Thick white eyebrows furrowed into a curious expression. “Do you really think it was God who sent you that vile thing?”
      “Who else?”
      “Who do you think, son?”
      Marcus sat in silence, his eyes locked with the eyes of the pastor.
      “It’s the devil who condemns us.” The minister pointed at the bottle. “He’s the one who sent you that thing so that you’d feel bad for doing something that he talked you into doing in the first place. And like a world class sucker, you’re falling for it.”
      Marcus seemed taken aback by the brutal honesty of the pastor’s words.
      “I don’t blame you,” the minister said, leaning back in his seat. “Lord knows I’ve fallen for more than my share of stupid over the years. But let me tell you something, Marcus. All that crafty S.O.B. can do is distract us from the truth of what Jesus did. We’re like Peter walking on the water, paying more attention to the waves than the One who has the power to keep us on top of them.”
      He paused, mimicked a tight rope walker, then continued. “The Devil may condemn us, waving our criminal record before the Judge of the Universe, but we got the best defense attorney possible—the Judge’s own Son. And He says, ‘Father, I’ve taken these crimes as my own and dealt with them at the cross. I said it was finished then, and it’s still finished now.’ And who do you think the judge is going to side with? His noble Son—who chose to become your sins so he could pay for them in your place—or some dirty rotten liar determined to hold a hateful grudge?”
      “Well…”
      Angela could see that Marcus wanted to believe, but his attention had once again returned to the bottle.
      The minister’s Bible landed on the table causing both the man and his sin to jump.
      “It is finished, Marcus.” Pastor Phillip pointed at the bottle, “This is a lie,” and then at the book, “this is the truth, and the truth says that this,” again, he pointed at the bottle, “is finished. Done. Dealt with. Old news. That sin, and all the others you’ve committed, or will ever commit, died with Jesus so that you can live forgiven.”
      Tears began to fill Marcus’s eyes. “I want to believe that.”
      “Then believe it,” Pastor Phillip said, chuckling at the obvious. “Arm yourself with the forgiveness God offers you through the cross, and send that bottle back to Hell where it belongs.”
      “I don’t know how,” Marcus wept.
      Springs of joy welled up in Pastor Phillip’s eyes and began to overflow down his time-worn cheek.
      “Then, son,” he said with no less love than if Marcus was his own flesh and blood child, “let me teach you.”
      The pastor rose to his feet, slowed by age, but powered by determination. He walked to where Marcus was sitting, laid his hands on him, and began to pray. It was the kind of prayer that only pastors filled with the Holy Spirit can pray—the kind of prayer that shakes the gates of Heaven and makes them shout Glory!
      Even the house seemed to tremble with his deep voice.
      At the minister’s bidding, Marcus repeated a few of the lines in a prayer of his own, claiming the forgiveness that, by grace, was rightfully his. Angela joined her husband, peeked back at the coffee table, and let out a gasp that quickly modulated into worship.
      The Bible was still where Pastor Phillip had left it.
      The bottle was gone.