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17
HAIL AND FAREWELL
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The next day was a hard one. The
time had come for Ted to go back to England, and for all Nita's petitioning
before the Throne of Grace, she still had no freedom to tell him about the
miracle she knew would occur in only twenty-four hours. He was broken. It
killed him to leave her, and yet he knew it was pointless to stay.
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"Man, I've got to get
back," she overheard him wearily telling a cousin. "I have only one
day before I have to be back on the job. I've got to get myself together."
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Nita longed to make him stay, to
say, "Hey, big brother, be here, stay at home." Instead, she kept
silent.
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Inside, she ached for him to be
there at the most fantastic moment of her life. The three other men she had
been able to tell - Colton, Syvelle, Andrew - Nita would have gladly
exchanged for the privilege of telling Ted. But the release never came.
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She wanted to see him off to
England, but he refused. He didn't want his sister to be a spectacle at the
airport, and he knew that the trip, short as it was by normal standards,
would exhaust her. He knew they would both break down, and he knew how
dangerous that could be for Nita's failing heart.
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Suzanne came by and took her to
her mother's home, to bid him farewell. She did not get out of the car - the
ritual would have taken too long - so Ted walked down to the gate and said
his good-byes. He held her hand, the same crooked little hand that he had so
desperately flexed on that first day in Sri Lanka. He bent down and kissed
her again and again, grieved but trying to keep cool, biting back the tears.
She knew by his face that he thought he was seeing her for the last time.
Nita hated it. She loved him.
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Now he was gone.
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Mrs. Edwards drove Ted to the
airport. Colton and his family would be going to church again, and they
didn't want Nita to be alone in her apartment after the ordeal, so they
insisted on taking her with them for Brother Andrew's second service.
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It was late. The main floor was
already packed. The balcony was full. People were standing in the stairways,
in the rear of the sanctuary, in the foyer, anywhere there was a square foot
of space. Nita was petrified. For every person in the swarming church, there
were two gawking eyes.
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It had already been an emotionally
devastating day. She was at the edge, ready to break.
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"If I can't get into the
balcony," Nita pleaded with soundless lips, "I want to go
home!"
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Suzanne comforted her patiently.
"It will be all right. I'll stay right with you. I won't leave you for a
moment."
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And she began pushing Nita's
wheelchair to the only available place in the entire building: directly in
front of the pulpit.
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The service had already begun:
Colton was at the pulpit, motioning to Suzanne to come on, come on, it's
okay.
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Nita felt her numb face growing
hot with shame as the people turned and squirmed to stare, row by row, as she
rolled down the aisle. It was the Roman Forum, the circus, with the
spectators packing the galleries to stare at the freak. An international
delegation occupied the front row. The military adviser to the nation's
president sat a few seats away. All the big shots had turned out for Brother
Andrew ... and here she sat, strapped like a bizarre rag doll to a metal
chair, her head slumped down to one side on the end of a neck made of rubber,
and absurdly - wearing sunglasses because of the constant tearing and the
sensitivity she had developed to direct light.
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Who among the hundreds of people
could help but stare at the misshapen little creature in front of the pulpit,
her bony legs encased in metal braces, her fingers misjointed, as if she had
been assembled by a demented toymaker?
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Nita was decimated. Already today
she had watched her brother walk away in despair, and now this debacle. She
had been out from under the public microscope for so long ... she had
successfully avoided the limelight for so many weeks ... and now she was
front and centre.
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The service ended and bedlam
descended on the helpless girl. The rabid attention of well-meaning masses
had always embarrassed her, and now she was engulfed in it. A thousand people
pressed in to pat her on the head and say, "God bless you, we're praying
for you." Several of the foreigners wrote her name down to carry back
the exotic prayer request. But Nita suspected they only came by out of morbid
curiosity to look on her misshapen body. She was itching to tell them all to
lay off with the sobbing and start rejoicing.
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"Hey,
brothers and sisters!" she wanted to shout. "Tomorrow at this hour,
by the grace of God, I'll be walking!"
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But she could no more tell her
secret to these nameless throngs than she could tell her precious, troubled
brother. Or mother. Instead, she was reduced to smiling blandly for the
onlookers, secretly resenting their intrusion on her privacy.
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If only she could have held them
off one more day.
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But
God's hand had arranged the bizarre exhibition! More people saw Nita's
deformed body in that single evening than had seen her in all the months of
her captivity. Tonight she was an obituary - tomorrow she would be Page One.
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After the service, Colton led his
family and Brother Andrew and Nita to a late dinner on the lawn of the
Fountain Café. Michaele played with Nita, rubbing soup on her lips and
goofing around. He thought he saw Dr. Pieris, the cynical Buddhist neurophysician,
at another table on the lawn.
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"He's staring at you,"
Michaele insisted.
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But the lights were too dim for
Nita to see him. Michaele impishly wheeled her past the man: he averted his
eyes as they went by. Yes, it was Pieris.
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How ironic, Nita thought, that he
would be among the last to see her in this condition. If only Ted could be here instead, she thought grimly, still
pining over her brother's sad departure.
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Brother Andrew, on the other hand,
was soaring, gobbling his dinner and laughing and talking about Nita's
impending miracle as if he were receiving the healing himself. Suddenly he
pushed away from the table and leaned over to Colton.
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"Is it all right if I hug
that girl?"
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"Of course, go right
ahead!"
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Brother Andrew bounded toward her,
squeezed her tight, and burst forth in tongues, praising God and weeping with
joy. He was going to fly out of Sri Lanka tonight, only hours before the
miracle, but he knew it would happen, and he was gleeful.
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Nita watched Andrew clapping his
hands and praising his Father, and she was tickled by the happy
demonstration. She sensed that God had given her this beautiful little
encounter to lift her spirits at the end of her final trying day. Even in the
slightest things, she knew, her Heavenly Father was still caring for her.
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"The
joy of the Lord is my strength," she often recited from Nehemiah 8:10.
On this last night of captivity, with its particular sadness, the Lord was
strengthening her with this expression of divine joy.
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Still, it felt good to know that
this was the last time she would have to watch someone else express what she
was feeling. She was thankful already that very soon she would be able to
reach out and touch these dear people just as they had reached out and
touched her ... to show love as freely as she felt it ... and as freely as
she had received it.
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Nita sighed softly and closed her
eyes. She longed for the perfect, gentle face of tomorrow.
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17 HAIL AND FAREWELL
