Instantly, consciousness crashed in.He'd slept at Charlie's. He'd been hereall night. Without telling his mom. Without even letting her know where he was going.
She'd be furious. She'd be terrified.
Sick—nauseous, weak, his head throbbing—he found his shoes where he'd thrown them. Stepping over a couple of sleeping kids, he stumbled, blinking, into the morning. It took him three tries to successfully get his key into the ignition of his truck. His conscience criticized him violently as he drove. He was selfish. Bad. The worst son. How could he have made a mistake this big?
When he reached the gate that led to the house he lived in with Mom, it was open. Which caused his stomach to drop like concrete released by a crane. This wasn't normal. They always kept the gate closed.
Anxiety pushed acid up his throat. As he neared the house, he saw a police car parked outside.A police car.
Had something happened to his mother? The fear was so paralyzing he couldn't move for several excruciating seconds. Eventually, he forced himself to approach the front door.
A middle-aged policeman with a stern face sat at their outdoor table. “Jude?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your mom is going to be fine.”
“What . . . ” He swallowed with effort. “What's happened?”
“She became extremely agitated when she couldn't get in contact with you. She called us. You'd only been gone five hours at the time. We weren't overly concerned because we're plenty familiar with teenagers. But we were very concerned about your mother. We came out to check on her and found her in such a state that my partner thought it best to take her to the emergency room. She was suffering from a severe panic attack. They've sedated her and stabilized her vitals.”
Jude hated himself too much to speak.
The policeman indicated the brown sack sitting on the table. “My wife likes to pack my breakfast. I figured I'd take a break and eat it while I waited for a bit to see if you'd show.”
“Thank you. I'm so sorry.”
“It's your mother you need to apologize to. These days, with cell phones, if parents can't reach you right away, they begin to worry. If they can't reach you for hours, some of them, your mother included, panic.”
“Yes, sir.”
The policeman placed the food back in his sack and carried it forward until he was facing Jude, eye to eye. “From now on, answer your cell phone when your mother calls you. Do not stay out all night without letting her know where you are. Obey your curfew.”
Jude closed his eyes for a moment, the regret crushing. “I will, sir. Is she at the hospital in Rockport?”
“Yes. You'll find her there.”
And he had. The whole episode had been a living nightmare. Until then, he hadn’t known guilt could twist your insides and turn your world gray.
He'd been a careful child. But since Charlie DuPont's party, right up to the present, he'd taken extraordinary care with people and with decisions. He deeply feared making a mistake.
Forgiving himself did not come easy. He'd never thought of himself, though, as someone who had a hard time forgiving others. Yet following his conversation with Gemma about faith, he was realizing that he'd been so fixed on what church members had done wrong toward him, that he'd failed to notice the thinghewas doing wrong.
Refusing to forgive.
For years, he'd been stewing in unforgiveness and bitterness toward the church community who'd abandoned them. And because he'd conflated that abandonment with God, he'd been stewing in unforgiveness and bitterness toward God, too.
Which smacked of pride, didn't it? He'd been a self-righteous jerk, secretly viewing himself as superior. Viewing himself as someone who was above failing the way he'd judged those Christians to have failed. Yet he was the idiot who'd just handled his feelings for Gemma the same way he'd handled his feelings at Charlie DuPont's party. By getting drunk.
Not so superior now, was he? It was sickeningly humbling.
Crossing to his outdoor table near the grill, he lowered into one of the chairs. His elbow planted on the table’s surface and he leaned his forehead into his hand. Mabel came to a stop at his feet, looking at him with concern and compassion.
He'd made good decisions his god. He'd been trying to find his worth in his degrees and career. His contentment in recognition and excellence. And after all this time he'd discovered that none of that was a firm foundation on which to build a life. He'd given that route a sincere shot. But none of it was capable of real joy or real peace.
He didn't yet know what to make of all this. What to do. How, even, to pray. It had been so long.
But at least now he was being honest with himself. He was looking hard at the perfection he'd attempted. And he didn't like what he saw.
