The Masterpiece

by Francine Rivers

“She has more walls than I do.” “All the more reason to find out what’s behind them. Just don’t bust through or try to climb over. Look for a gate. When you find it, knock; don’t pound.” He smiled slightly. “And wait.” “I’ve never

“An apology would be nice.” He’d never apologized to anyone in his life and wasn’t about to start now. “Let’s call it an error in judgment.” She

“Look what God can do with weeds.”

Stay still and quiet as a little mouse, Mommy had said, and so Gracie did.

Aunt Elizabeth didn’t look anything like Mommy. She was pretty, but she didn’t look happy. Or friendly.

He’d been attracted to women before, but not the same way he was with Grace. She scared him. He could put a stop right now to whatever was starting to happen between them. Jasper said that was his pattern. The old voice spoke in his head. Don’t get too close, Bobby Ray. You know how much love hurts. Walk away before you feel anything more than you already do. She’s going to rip your heart out.

“Colors come from a phenomenon called scattering. The wavelengths of light and the sizes of the particles determine the colors. I learned that in a college science class.”

I see sunrise as God’s good morning, and sunset as God’s good night.”

Grace swore she’d never stray again. Hold me close, Lord. Never let me go. Alone, she knew she’d drown and wash up on a sandy shore.

“You believe in yourself. You believe you have control over your life and can live accordingly. That’s your religion.”

“There’s order everywhere: the stars, the seasons, the currents of the ocean, the air that moves over the planet, down to the cells that make up everything. I don’t believe that’s by chance or a series of accidents. It takes intelligence to create all that, intelligence beyond anything human beings can understand. That’s part of why I believe in God.”

“Yes, and I believe in hell, too. Everyone these days likes to think they’ll go to heaven or a better place somewhere. The truth is, the price for sin is death and hell. That’s why Jesus came. That’s why God sent His Son. Only Jesus could live a sin-free life and be the perfect sacrifice to ransom us. All He asks is that we believe. And I believe.”

Lord, You deal with him.

She had been so desperate for someone to love her she swallowed a lie.

“Do you really think a woman wants to be a prostitute? I can’t imagine anything worse than having to sell my body to any guy who wanted to use me. I think women do that kind of work as a last resort.”

Then she feels so dirty nothing matters after that. People look at her like she’s trash anyway. Now she believes she is. She can’t see any way out.”

He was smart. He was shrewd. Every textbook parenting technique was tried on him. None worked. He didn’t get along with other children. He didn’t trust adults. Several families said the boy needed stability and a forever home and tried to adopt him. He said no, hating them for what they were trying to do. Sheila Dean was his mother, and no one was taking her place. Not ever. She was out there in the city someplace, and he was going to find her.

“The Israelites picked up great stones when they crossed the Jordan River. When they reached the Promised Land, they made a memorial so they’d never forget what God had done.”

By the time Bobby Ray Dean earned his GED, Roman Velasco had five thousand dollars in savings and several more jobs lined up. All thanks to Chet and Susan and Jasper and their investment in a kid nobody else had time

How was it Grace saw what he’d been so careful to hide?

“His mother disappeared when he was quite young. He was passed from one foster home to another. He was a runner and always ended up back in the Tenderloin, where he and his mother had lived. Not a new story. We’ve had a lot of boys from dysfunctional families—or no family at all. They don’t attach to people. It takes time to build trust, and some of them do their best to sabotage any relationship, especially if they start feeling something.

“His mother. He was seven when she disappeared. He was in and out of thirty foster homes between the ages of seven and fifteen. There’s a lot of deep-seated anger in a child who’s been abandoned. Some turn to violence. Roman used paint to fight back.” “Some hide or become people pleasers.”

“Don’t talk. Don’t trust. Don’t feel.” Susan nodded. “The mantra of kids who suffered at the hands of their parents.”

Grace never spoke of her past either. She’d always felt vaguely responsible for what happened in Memphis, though she didn’t know why. Her aunt couldn’t bear to look at her because she looked so much like her father, and Aunt Elizabeth had hated him. She had said as much to Miranda Spenser. It

Grace constantly tried to make up for whatever she’d done wrong. How do you make amends for something you don’t understand?

“You don’t have all the answers, old man.” “None of us ever do.” Jasper embraced him briefly and slapped his back. “At least you’re showing yourself brave enough to drive forward instead of staring in the rearview mirror.”

“Hello, Aunt Elizabeth.” Grace offered the potted hydrangea. Roman bristled when the woman took it like a queen accepting a gift from a peasant too far beneath her to rate a thank-you. Then it occurred to him that he’d often treated Grace the same way.

don’t have to ask how she’s doing. She always gives her best to anything she does.”

This man isn’t so easy to read. He doesn’t like to talk about himself, and what he did say wasn’t something to make himself look good.”

“Yes, I was right, but that doesn’t mean you can never trust your heart again.” She nodded toward Roman. “He wants to know more about you. You’re on firmer ground now. You know how deceptive the heart can be.” She headed back toward the patio. “Don’t hide away and punish yourself for the rest of your life. It’s no way to live.”

Jasper was his only true friend, and only because Jasper made all the effort.

Why had her mother stayed in an abusive relationship? Was she her mother’s daughter, as Aunt Elizabeth believed, prone to make the same mistakes? Did she have to repeat the same patterns? Why had it been easy for Aunt Elizabeth to read Patrick’s character and impossible for her to see? And if Aunt Elizabeth could see the truth about people, what terrible thing had she seen in Grace that she could never love her, not even as a niece?

If she wanted to know him on a deeper level, she was going to have to take risks. Did she have the courage to open the door into the old darkness, that awful place of nightmares?

“As you pointed out a while ago, I had the Mastersons and Jasper. They loved me.” “They still love you.” “I have no idea why. I haven’t made it easy.” He didn’t make anything easy. “God was taking care of you.” God had taken care of her, too, even when she hadn’t realized it.

“Wherever I was, I slept in a closet. At home, when I was in foster care, in my aunt’s house. It was the only place I felt safe.” He didn’t say anything. “I was afraid of my aunt, afraid of the nightmares that always came. I wanted my mother. Aunt Elizabeth was angry all the time, not like my father had been, but I felt it, even when she tried to hide it. I was afraid of her.” She closed her eyes tightly. “I was afraid of everything.”

light was all around him. All the fear I’d been feeling went away. I climbed onto my bed and sat there and talked to him. I told him everything that happened. He told me I didn’t have to be afraid anymore, and I believed him.” She let out a shuddering sigh. “I never slept in the closet again.” “You’re saying an angel came to you.”

“He said God loved me. I believed him. I still believe. He told me I’d never be alone, and I believed that, too. I never stopped believing in God, even when I listened to people who didn’t.”

“I’ve wondered about that a lot. I think it’s because I didn’t need him anymore. When I accepted Jesus, the Holy Spirit came to live in me. That’s what the angel meant when he said I’d never be alone. I sense when God speaks to me. I don’t have to see an angel. Unfortunately, I haven’t always listened.” She’d dreamed about her angel several times over the last few years. After Patrick left. When she was expecting Samuel. In the dream, her friend simply came and sat beside her and didn’t say anything, his presence comfort enough. It was when daylight came that the worry returned, the fear she’d make another mistake, a bigger mistake.

He was trying to explain the inexplicable.

“Where was God in everything you and I have been through, Grace? Tell me that. Where was God when your father was beating your mother to death and then blowing his brains out? Where was God when my mother was selling her body to keep a roof over our heads? She used drugs to feel better. Maybe she wanted to forget how she made a living. Maybe she wanted to forget she had a kid. Where was God in all that?”

“I’m not trying to be mean, Grace.” She turned a corner. “I know you’re not happy.” She flicked a glance in the mirror before refocusing on the road. “Well, neither am I.” She fell silent as she drove on. “I’m going to do my best, and I expect you to cooperate.”

wept. “I can’t do this!” She sobbed harder than Gracie. “I can’t! God, why did You do this to me?”

Sunday, church. Monday through Friday, school, after-school care, homework. Chores every day of the week. On Saturday, Aunt Elizabeth put on jeans, a T-shirt, and plastic clogs and went outside to work in her garden. She expected Gracie to help. Sunshine was good for the soul, she said, and the vegetables and fruit good for the body.

She didn’t know who or what he was, other than he was her friend and she didn’t have to fear him. He told her she could go to sleep now without worrying about tomorrow. Tomorrow would take care of itself, and he would be watching over her. When she lay down and pulled the covers up, he sang over her.

He didn’t hush her or tell her to go to sleep. He listened, his soft, cozy glow making her warm inside.

“No more talk of angels ever again.” Aunt Elizabeth spoke in a hard voice. “It makes you sound crazy.” She went out, closing the door firmly behind her. Gracie looked at her friend. “Why couldn’t she see you?” “Believing is seeing.”

Roman had been afraid, many times, but never so deeply he’d imagined some celestial being coming to the rescue or offering words of comfort. He’d waded through his fear, crushing it with anger.

Even with similar backgrounds, he felt the difference. He had a house, fancy cars, money in the bank. She struggled to stand on her own. He didn’t have anyone depending on him. She had a child, a son who needed her. He had a few friends and kept them at a distance. She carved out time with hers. He no longer had goals. She still pursued hers. He lived from one day to the next, doing whatever seemed right in his own eyes, and felt rootless and adrift. She lived to please an imaginary friend and seemed grounded—secure in her faith, if nothing else.

Roman screamed. He looked for something, anything, to grab on to, but there was nothing but the lost souls with him and the loathsome creatures relishing their misery.

He screamed out the last thing he remembered. “Jesus!” Shrieks rippled through the cavernous tunnel. Roman cried out again. “Oh, God! Christ, help me!” Blinding light filled the darkness. Someone clasped his wrist, lifting him, and in the midst of hell’s cacophony, whispered, “I am.”