Solemn Oath. Hannah Alexander

      Mercy shoved the sheets into the washer with a little extra force, glad she’d decided to buy the protective mattress pad this summer. Tedi’s brilliant, wonderful, little-girl mind was working out some nightmare issues that nobody should ever have to face—issues Theodore Zimmerman had caused. And how would he have reacted to tonight’s mishap? With ridicule.

      She slammed the lid on the washer. And now he thought he could just dance back into Tedi’s life and turn it upside down again. He was the most selfish, thoughtless—

      “Mom?”

      Mercy turned to find Tedi watching her from the laundry room door. “What, honey?”

      “Are you mad at me for wetting the bed again?”

      Mercy realized her jaws were set and she was gritting her teeth. “You’ve got to be kidding.” She made an attempt to relax her facial features into a smile and went over to put her arm around her daughter. “When have I ever been mad at you? You’re the most important person in my life.” She buried her face in Tedi’s hair and squeezed her close for a long moment. If only she could make the nightmares go away. “I hate to see you going through this. Come on. Let’s get to bed.” She walked with her arm around Tedi to the master bedroom.

      Tedi was silent for a moment, then said, “You’re mad at Dad again, aren’t you?”

      Oh boy. There was no hiding anything from this child. Mercy motioned for Tedi to crawl into the queen-size bed—a newly purchased luxury. “You’re far too discerning for an eleven-year-old.” She switched off the bedside lamp and reached over instinctively to tuck the covers around Tedi’s shoulders.

      “Will you always be mad at him?” Tedi asked into the darkness.

      Mercy was tempted to tell Tedi to just go to sleep and stop worrying so much. But Tedi would keep worrying, and Mercy knew how that felt. Her own mom had done the same thing to her. Of course, Ivy had not only been a mother but a shield for Mercy when Dad got drunk, and sometimes a punching bag.

      And after all that, Mercy had married a guy just like him.

      “So will you, Mom? Always be mad at Dad?”

      She had to be honest. “I don’t know.”

      There was a long silence, and Mercy had just decided Tedi had fallen asleep, when the small voice came again.

      “Will I?”

      Mercy winced at the quivering sound of her daughter’s voice. “I don’t know, honey. For your sake, I hope not.”

      “Me, too. Grandma says we should always be able to forgive people who hurt us, or we’ll just be hurt worse. I don’t know what she means by that.”

      “Well, medically speaking, when we harbor anger within ourselves it hurts us physically. It makes us sick, gives us ulcers, and scientists are discovering a lot of other things it can do.” And why was she lying here filling Tedi’s head with more things to worry about? She glanced at the lighted numbers of her clock. It was four-thirty in the morning. She didn’t feel up to a deep philosophical discussion.

      “I asked Grandma how you’re supposed to forgive someone.” Apparently Tedi was in a philosophical mood.

      “What did she say?” Mercy asked.

      “She said it’s a hard thing to do without God’s help. Grandma uses God’s help a lot.”

      Three months ago Mercy would have been irritated by her mother’s attempts to indoctrinate Tedi into her spiritual thought processes. Funny how things could change in such a short time. Mom had been a Christian for the past five years, and there seemed to be a peace about her that wasn’t there when Mercy was growing up. The peace seemed to increase with time, and Mom seemed to grow stronger, even through Grandma’s horrible cancer and death this spring, and Mom’s own heart problems, and the horror and helplessness of seeing Theodore mistreat Tedi.

      Mom’s God was also Lukas’s God. After many talks with Lukas about it, Mercy had recently begun to consider the possibility that she might be interested in getting to know more about Him. But why would He want to get to know her? Her skepticism still ran deep.

      Still, there was something about Christianity—not with every person who claimed the belief, but with enough people that she couldn’t help noticing the difference. And lately she felt surrounded by those people. Even Arthur Collins, in the midst of all his pain the other day, had prayed for her. She’d thought about it often….

      “Mom?”

      Mercy’s eyes flew open in the darkness, and she realized she’d dozed off. “Mmm-hmm?”

      “Has Dad talked to you yet?”

      Okay, that was a powerful wake-up. “Yes, Tedi.” And how did Tedi know about that? What was going on here? Remain calm. “Did he talk to you?”

      “Yes. He came to the school the other day to spy on me. Abby saw him standing in the trees, and she made me go talk to him.”

      “She made you?”

      “Well, you know, she talked me into it.”

      Mercy kept her breathing even, rehearsing the speech she would give Tedi and Abby on peer pressure later. What was Theodore up to?

      “He asked if he could see me.”

      Tedi didn’t say anything else for a moment, probably trying to determine how much more she could safely share. Mercy knew she had been far too indiscreet in the past about her bitterness toward Theo.

      Mercy waited until she felt she could control her voice sufficiently, then asked, “How do you feel about that, honey?”

      “I don’t know. He apologized.” Tedi paused for a moment. “He’s done that a lot of times before, hasn’t he, Mom?”

      “Yes.”

      “But Grandma’s always talking about how we should be willing to forgive over and over again. I forget how many times, but it’s a lot.” She hesitated. “Do you want me to see him?”

      No! Never again! Why couldn’t he just cease to exist? If he truly realized the damage he had done to Tedi, why didn’t he leave the state and never come back? The truth as Mercy saw it was that he still didn’t care who else he hurt. He just wanted to charm his way back into their lives.

      “Do you, Mom?”

      Mercy sighed. It was far too early in the morning for this discussion. “I want to do what’s right for you. Unfortunately, I don’t know what that is right now. I think I’ll hold off on a decision until you and I can make it together and be more sure about how we feel.”

      Tedi let out a little sigh, and Mercy could tell she’d given the right answer for the moment. Minutes later, the deep, even breathing of a somnolent child whispered through the room. Mercy relaxed.

      But she did not sleep. Fear and anger filled her mind. If not for Tedi, this hatred wouldn’t have such a stranglehold. Mom kept talking to Tedi about the concept of forgiveness, but that was such a foreign concept when it came to her embittered relationship with Theo. Would it ever be possible? Was it even advisable?