Chapter 10
With Laif’s arm around her shoulder, Sharon helped him inside her apartment.
Cuddles followed closely behind.
For a brief moment she couldn’t believe she was doing this. She suddenly felt upset. She wasn’t sure at whom though. At Laif for being so mysteriously appealing? No. Maybe at my mother for molding me into a helper? At myself for overplaying a helper role now? Is Laif really safe?
This distressing feeling vanished as she continued to breathe in Laif's scent, so close, his firmly muscled arm and body so warm. Her heart fluttered.
As she led him to the couch, he limped favoring his left leg. He was a victim of something. Laif, although strange, didn’t seem dangerous right now, and he was in need of help.
She opened the curtains letting in daylight. Her apartment had only the bare essentials of furniture. That was fine with her though. She wasn’t impressed with an abundance of things, but rather an open, sparse area—a good feng shui. And it was cheaper that way too.
Her only decorations were four prints of impressionistic paintings on the walls. One was of Buddy Holly, another was James Dean, the third was Elvis, and last was Johnny Cash holding June Carter—the love of his life. This was her favorite.
On the kitchen counter were several shiny 1950’s coins in a brass bowl, a James Dean cookie jar, and an old ticket in a glass frame of a Roy Orbison concert that she had found at a pawn shop. The trash can in the corner appeared in both looks and shape as Betty Boop.
She asked again, “Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?”
“I’m fine. Just need to recuperate.”
She thought it odd she cared about his well being, but she did. This man, she considered him to be a murderer only twenty-four hours ago. Now, she questioned her previous assumptions. He didn’t feel like he could ever harm her. Besides, she wanted answers. And Cindy’s parents hurt him, so perhaps he wasn’t all that bad. And he had saved Sharon's life, which no other man could claim.
She slipped out of her sandals.
On the living room table, DVDs lay scattered about. She was an avid movie-watcher, her favorites being modern love stories and horror flicks. And when she could find a well done film that mixed both genres, she really treasured it. She didn’t like old movies from the fifties or sixties though. She felt better leaving that reality more to her own mind’s creation rather than to a story. It felt more personal to simply listen to a song or hold a coin from that era.
Sharon had so many questions for Laif that she didn’t know where to start.
He rubbed his right leg. “You saw, didn't you?”
“I’m not sure what I saw, but I got some snapshots.”
He sighed. She sat next him on the couch, with Cuddles on the floor looking attentively up at them.
“You saw. Maybe not the whole thing, but you saw.”
She began stacking the DVDs in a neat pile on the table. “What did I see?”
“Concentrated lies.”
“Inside the Brewsters?”
He nodded, his face wincing in pain as he stretched out his right leg.
“I’ve had a bad feeling about them for a while.” She considered offering him heat packs from her first-aid kit in the closet. But she delayed this because she still was unsure whose side this man was on. She spotted him, after all, laughing and talking with the Brewsters before this all happened.
“Everyone’s got a little evil in them,” he said, “but the Brewsters have a lot.”
“I wouldn’t say everyone.”
He chuckled. He reached down and ruffled Cuddles’ fur and scratched behind her ears. “Maybe not cute dogs like this.”
Cuddles gave her biggest dog-smile. She was a pretty good judge of character. The worker at the Inland Valley Humane Society said she must have been beaten by her previous owners from bruising discovered by their neighbor who brought her in. The previous owners had left for Vegas for a week without leaving food for the puppy. After nights of howling and whining from their apartment, this neighbor busted a window, brought the puppy back to his place, and fed her table scraps until the owners returned. But the owners became livid over their broken window. They told him to keep the puppy since he cared so much. The neighbor didn’t want Cuddles but was gracious enough to drop her off at the Humane Society.
Sharon didn’t believe Cuddles would allow just anyone to touch her. Cuddles had tasted her share of evil in the world, was now sensitive and cautious to it, and wanted no more.
She asked, “Why were you laughing with the Brewsters?”
“I was trying to get on their side … or rather appear to be where they are.”
“Why?”
After a moment of hesitation, he asked, voice trembling, “Do you have water?”
“I’m sorry. I’ve got so many questions, I’m not being the best host.” She went into the kitchen and filled a glass of water from her Arrowhead dispenser and began to boil water for herself. “Do you want coffee instead?”
He stood up and remained motionless, unable to answer.
“I’m making it for myself. It’s no trouble.”
“No. I’ll try the water. Everyone needs … a little … water every day.” He came to the kitchen counter and sat on a stool. Cuddles, not wanting to leave his side, followed and lay to his right. Despite it being cool in the house, fine beads of sweat appeared on Laif’s hairline, and he looked anxiously at the glass that she had set on the counter.
She stated, “You still didn’t answer my question.”
He drained half the water down his throat and pushed the glass a full arm's length away, splashing some against the sides, a few droplets spilling out onto the countertop.
She frowned at his odd behavior.
Laif grew pale. He spoke quickly with his eyes fixed on the droplets. “Yes. Why indeed do I meet them where they are? It is uncomfortable to take on an evil disposition. I mean really take it on, projecting the small evil inside myself to appear as the whole.”
She shrugged. “Then why?”
He looked at her. “I thought it might help ease their minds so they could handle the truth better. They are Cindy’s parents, after all.”
“Truth?”
“That’s what I do.”
“What?”
“It’s not unlike mandatory therapy the court requires abusive parents to attend. Yet it’s quite different. Mandatory therapy wouldn’t help the kinds of people I deal with. They wouldn’t listen.”
“What do you do?”
“Imbue truth into them.”
She rose on the balls of her feet, leaning forward onto the counter on her elbows. “Force them to face the truth?”
He nodded.
“How? With that light?”
“My gift.”
“And that guy from the crash. You did it to him?”
He nodded. “And others.”
“You said he committed suicide.”
“Many girls barely survive the emotional pain after being molested. Some can’t and kill themselves. Most have to stay in denial for years, crumbling their lives. He had been denying he had done any wrong. When he was forced to face the truth—all of their pain—he couldn’t handle it. I’ve never met an evil person who could.”
She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of forcing the truth on people. But she couldn’t help being attracted or at least interested in the concept.
She had often wanted the most difficult children on her caseload to face their self-defeating behaviors. They would fail classes because they refused to put out effort; they would fight other kids in school and get into trouble; some would start drug use at age ten, join gangs, or become pregnant at age twelve. These kids were just so hard, it seemed like she could never get through to them. It would be nice to use Laif’s power in a good way. She wondered whether he had been using it to benefit people.
“What does all this have to do with Cindy?” she asked.
“She’s in danger. She’s like me.”
The water was boiling. Sharon reluctantly moved to the stove and turned off the heat. “You mean she has this same gift?”
“Not yet.” He looked away. “For me it began when I was twelve.”
“She’s in danger from her parents, isn’t she?”
He nodded.
“She told me she never wanted to go back with them and was quite emotional about it.”
“Being under evil’s subjugation is … difficult.” He reached for his water glass, pulled it to his face so quickly that he accidentally splashed himself, eyes widening, body recoiling, stool tilting backward, gasping for breath as though drowning. And quickly she moved to reach for him, but missed because she was too far. He smashed flat onto his back against the floor, the glass still tightly clasped in one hand.
Cuddles stood up with her ears perked, looking at him.
Sharon ran around the counter and kneeled beside him. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course,” he said adamantly.
He looked rather silly as he twisted himself around to sit, trying to avoid the puddle on the floor. She had to hold herself to stop from laughing. Something was strange about Laif and water. His knuckles seemed to pop out around the empty glass.
“Can I get you more water?” she asked, feeling a smile sneak the corners of her lips up.
“No, I’m fine,” he said quickly. He picked up the stool with his free hand and set it beside the counter again, but further down from the puddle. Sharon was still watching him. He turned away from her, appearing embarrassed, ashamed, or uneasy—she couldn’t tell which. “Really. I’m not thirsty anymore.” He sat down, holding the glass firmly affixed to the counter. Although only a swallow was left inside, a 7.0 earthquake couldn’t shake the liquid out now.
She went to his side. “Can I take that from you?”
He looked at the glass for a moment, and his grip slowly slackened. He offered a faint smile as he handed it to her. “Thank you.”
This Laif was a bit odd, but she didn’t feel unsafe. She put his glass in the sink, poured the hot water from the kettle into her cup, and stirred in some granules of instant coffee. She turned back to him and let the weight of her stare rest on him, just to see how he would take it.
He looked away. “Like I was saying, being under evil’s control is terrible.”
She moved closer to him and sipped her coffee. “Isn’t the term ‘evil’ a bit extreme? I mean, if we all have some in us, isn’t ‘weakness’ a better description?”
He looked at her, considering her words. “Incomplete though.”
She leaned on the counter closer to him, trying to figure this man out. “But ‘evil’ seems too strong.”
He didn’t answer.
“Isn’t that more appropriate for biblical references, for Satan or demons?”
“Sharon, evil exists here on earth, in this lifetime,” he spoke passionately. “How could it not? Goodness exists here, and wherever goodness exists so must evil.”
Is he talking about himself? she wondered, sipping more coffee. “It just seems that evil is more than just dishonesty.”
“The Devil has been called ‘the father of lies.’”
She nodded.
“Mrs. Brewster took a hammer to her daughter's head. Mr. Brewster sat by watching. What more do people have to do to classify them as evil?”
She recalled something from her case files at work that he might not know: Mr. Brewster had an alleged history of sexual assault against a minor ten years ago which had been unfounded and dismissed. And when Cindy went for her physical exam the day after being pulled from her home, the doctor found evidence of trauma in the vagina area, possibly indicating rape. However, the girl denied sexual contact with anyone. Regardless, Mr. Brewster wasn’t the ideal model of a good father.
She pressed, “But what do those things have to do with dishonesty?”
“Everything.” He looked out the sliding glass door at the early afternoon sun. “You’d have to embrace lies to distort reality enough to justify hammering a girl’s head. Lies that prevent you from stopping, prevent you from seeing the damage done to your family, to have come to the point where you no longer care.”
“Perhaps.”
He turned to her with a heavy grimace. “What do you think Brian David Mitchell said to Elizabeth Smart when she asked him why he was abducting her?”
Sharon recalled the eleven-year-old girl’s story of months of rape and threats to her family. She shrugged.
“He said God told him to do it. Obviously a lie. Adolf Hitler was very dishonest. And what do you think Sadam Hussein said when he was hiding out from American troops trying to liberate Iraq? ‘The Americans are persecuting my people.’ Yet when he was in power he had chemical weapons kill thousands of Iraq’s people. Lies were always close to his heart.”
“Not everyone would agree with that.”
“I don’t expect everyone to. It’s the lies we tell ourselves that are most hurtful. These allow us to sit back and watch other people harm innocents.”
“Okay. But what was that white light that came from your hands?”
“Not everyone sees those things.”
“I’m sure a reporter would be interested in my snapshots.”
“The pictures you took will appear normal. There’s something inside you that allowed you to see the shadow and light.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Appearing deep in thought, he stared at the print of Johnny Cash with June Carter. “Sometimes when two people come into close contact, both their gifts become enhanced.” He paused and turned to her. “Maybe around me, your sight amplified.”
“This all sounds too extraordinary.” She poured herself more coffee and gulped down the whole cup. She felt a warm heaviness in her stomach and the buzz of caffeine slowly accelerating her thinking. She remembered something. “Cindy told me she hoped angels were real.” She hesitated, admiring his gorgeous, sculpted face. “Are you … an angel?”
He looked down. “We’re all born with a talent to develop. I’m just a person who’s got this one.”
“Like Cindy.”
“Yes. Like Cindy will.”
“I’m not sure what to believe right now, except that Cindy needs our help.”