Freedom

Gary pressed the doorbell button with trepidation. He had been sitting in his car nearly half an hour, but finally made it to the front stoop. He tried to calm himself by closing his eyes for a moment and quietly saying "God, please help me" as he took a deep breath. "I don't even know if they still live here," he thought to himself. "It's been five years, and they were old even then. They may not--"

The door opened wide as an elderly, frail-looking woman appeared, her face wrinkled with age but lit with a friendly smile. "Gary!" she said enthusiastically. Within seconds, a tall, thin, bald man was standing by her side and reaching out to shake Gary's hand. "Good to see you, Gary!" he said, grinning. “Come on in!”

The living room looked the same, and he felt his gut wrench with shame about the last time he’d seen it in person—years ago. He’d recalled it many times (in the middle of the night while trying to sleep) along with the old couple who had been so trusting of him. He was drinking and using drugs back then. Ugh. He had done odd jobs for this couple, Walter and Sylvia. They had been so friendly, inviting him to dinner and sending him Christmas cards up until they lost track of him. They had always been kind to him, even when he failed to show up on time or at all. But he was clean and sober now, and this was something he needed to do. He needed to make amends.

The couple led him to their corner sofa and Walter waved an arm to invite Gary to take a seat. Sylvia had meanwhile stepped into the kitchen and quickly returned with a tray of cookies, lemonade and ceramic tea cups. “I remember how you loved my peanut butter cookies, Gary!” she proudly proclaimed, gently pushing the tray toward him on the coffee table. “Help yourself, son,” she said.

They had lots of catching-up type questions for Gary, asking about his family and his dog, Rusty. They were so friendly—too friendly. He could tell they didn’t suspect him. He ate a cookie to be polite, but his stomach was churning. He took a sip of lemonade.

There was finally a quiet moment. It was time. And he knew it. 

“I need to tell you why I’m here,” he stated hesitantly. He had expected them to ask, but they simply didn’t. 

They looked at him with broad smiles of polite expectation.

“Five years ago, I broke into your home when you weren’t here.” There. He’d said it. If they wanted to call the cops, so be it; but he had gotten the words out. He had actually said it. “I stole from you. I was—”

Walter took Sylvia’s hand and they glanced quickly at one another. 

Gary waited for the reaction he had expected—anger, disappointment, upset of some kind; but it was not there. Instead, Walter asked, “Why on Earth did you move the family portrait over the fireplace?” 

“Uh, I-I wanted to see if there was a safe behind it,” Gary responded, curious about the question.

“What about the candlesticks from the side table?” Sylvia asked. “They weren’t valuable to anyone but us. They were my mother's. Why those?”

Gary hung his head down and looked at his shoes as he answered, “I thought maybe I could sell them or pawn them. I’m so sor—”

The old couple, one at a time, identified things they knew had been disturbed or taken. They had specific questions about why he chose to take or move them. They remembered more than he did about the break-in! It was just stuff to him at the time—a means to an end—something he could sell or pawn to get money to drink and drug. It had been his way of life at the time. But not now. Now he was living a program of recovery, and it meant more to him than anything else. In fact, he felt his life depended on it. He had to do this to heal.

After what seemed an endless list of items the couple recalled, Gary raised his head and looked Sylvia and then Walter in the eyes. He cleared his throat and spoke with a hint of self respect, “I need to know what I can do to make it right.” An eternity passed. The air was sticky-thick with silence.

Walter squeezed Sylvia’s hand and they looked at one another for several seconds. Sylvia nodded her head at Walter, knowingly, as they communicated silently like a couple that had been married more than fifty years. They looked again at Gary, taking far too long for his liking.

“Please. What can I do to make it right?” Gary repeated.

“You already have,” said Walter, as Sylvia reached for a napkin from the cookie tray to dab her suddenly flooding eyes.

“I don’t understand.” Gary said. 

“All these years…” Walter took a deep breath. “All these years, we thought our son did it.”

Gary left the old couple’s home a free man. And somehow, he reflected, it seemed his actions had freed Walter and Sylvia in the process. It felt miraculous, like something that could not happen but did. His countenance was that of a young man who had been reborn simply by telling the truth. It felt glorious. He squinted at the afternoon sky and glided across the street to his parked truck. As he reached for the door handle, he rested his forehead on the door’s window and sobbed momentarily with gratitude. “Thank you,” he said to a God he did not understand. “Thank you.”

It had been the last “amends” on his list, and he was beyond grateful for the experience. He had no idea he might be helping to mend a family in the process of doing what was right, taking responsibility and telling the truth.

“This,” he thought to himself as he drove away, “this is freedom.”