Forgiveness and Bee Stings
The Conclusion of a Serial Story of Repentance
A bee stung him on the right hand, which was really the last signal that he needed that today was not like any other day. Had he ever been stung by a bee while driving before? And why didn’t he have the urge to scream or put his fist through glass or take the car off the road?
The bee was somewhere down there dead on the floorboard now, between the center console and his seat, and the back of his hand was red where the stinger was. But he was back to listening to the CD his father had given him, the recording of a sermon from his church a few years back. And Trevor realized now that he’d already decided to play it again after it was over. His head had a dull ache, maybe not an actual hangover but the kind of thing that would still normally make him want to punch something, but he didn’t want to punch something, he wanted to listen to this guy talk about God. It was without a doubt the strangest feeling he’d ever had, and if he’d heard someone else describe this Trevor would have rolled his eyes and thought the guy was a lying spiritual showoff. But here he was feeling it, driving just under seventy on I-275, and it was as real as the pain in his hand and the pain in his head. And it felt like boiling water in his heart.
So the thing the good God who governs the world used to change Mattie’s and Kayla’s and Jenn’s lives, forever, was an average sermon by a fifty-four-year-old man at a nondescript, nondenominational church in southwest Ohio. It was in a white envelope that had a coffee stain on it, and the pastor had had a cold the day he preached it, and he whiffed on a joke he tried to tell at the beginning. But Trevor was born again at some point between the eleventh minute of the first time through and the fourteenth minute on the fourth time through, which was when he pulled the car over two exits from home and just sat there, idling. He had never felt more shame in his life, but he’d also never felt more relief. He had no vocabulary for either thing. If I’d been sitting with him in his car and asked, he would have simply said he knew the guy he was listening to on this CD was right, and that he wanted to meet him and tell him so, and that he really wanted to meet Jesus.
Knocking on the door was the hardest part. He shook his hand after he did because it still hurt a little, but also just to have something to do with it while he stood there nervous. When she answered the door she looked confused, and after he gave the girls hugs and listened to them talk about Mattie’s birthday presents, he asked Jenn if he could talk to her. He gave her everything his father would have wanted him to, and he knew it wouldn’t be enough. She didn’t cry when he told her how sorry he was. He did, but that didn’t move her much. But she did cry when he said he was a bad husband, and she always remembered how he looked her in the eyes when he’d said that part. And when she touched the back of that hand, just for a second, they both knew it might be put back together.
Life was always up and down after that. Trevor didn’t look at pornography for the last time until almost seven years later, though by then he had only looked at it once in the prior twelve months. He still got angry. But he was also a very different man, and everyone at work saw it even before Jenn and his daughters did. Jenn was slow to recognize it because she was suspicious. His daughters were simply because they didn’t hate him to begin with, so their eyes were more ready to overlook any of his old faults and not give much thought to the fact that they seemed dead and buried now. They were happy Daddy was home. They were happy Mommy was happy (which she was about six months into his moving back in). That was enough for them. But the guys at work noticed the first week. Trevor didn’t gossip anymore, and he was happy, himself. Trevor had never really seemed happy. He made jokes, and he was fun when he got buzzed, but he’d never had cheer. He did, now, almost always, and it was like working with a different guy. They liked him better.
Jenn joined the church Trevor started going to, and the two of them were there when Kayla was baptized four years after Trevor moved back in. Jenn grabbed his hand and tickled the inside of his right palm, and she whispered that she was proud of him in his ear. He looked down at that hand and remembered the bee sting, and he thanked his Father for not giving up on him, and when church was over they all went to get ice cream. Mattie had vanilla, and Trevor had the manager bring out a little birthday cupcake for her. He explained it wasn’t really her birthday, but that it was a little inside father-daughter thing.
He kissed her on the cheek, and he whispered that he loved her.