Frost Heaves

  Frost Heaves

  a novel by Alana Terry

  Frost heaves (noun): Upward swelling in soil or roads during freezing conditions, caused by water expanding as it turns to ice.

  “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

  Isaiah 41:10

  Note: The views of the characters in this novel do not necessarily reflect the views of the author, nor is their behavior necessarily condoned.

  The characters in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to real persons is coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form (electronic, audio, print, film, etc.) without the author’s written consent.

  Frost Heaves

  Copyright © 2019 Alana Terry

  Scriptures quoted from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  www.alanaterry.com

  CHAPTER 1

  Jade was being ridiculous. She had no reason to be this nervous. And for what? A testimony? She’d talked about her past plenty of times. Why should doing it on stage in front of her entire church be any different?

  Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she wiped her sweaty palms on her pants. Come on, girl. You’ve got this.

  The bathroom door swung open, and Jade jumped as her daughter burst through.

  “Dezzirae Rose Jackson,” Jade snapped, then paused to collect her breath. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  “Forget it.” Jade let her daughter cling to her leg and adjusted a barrette holding one of Dez’s corn rows. “What are you doing here scaring me half to death? Aren’t you supposed to be downstairs playing?”

  Dez shrugged. “Got bored.”

  As cute as Dez looked in her God is my Superhero T-shirt and sparkling light-up tennis shoes, Jade didn’t have time for any extra drama tonight. She gave her daughter a well-rehearsed scowl. “You know you’re not supposed to be bugging me right now. I’ve got to get ready for my talk. How many times do I have to tell you?”

  Another shrug.

  “Aren’t there any other little kids down there?” Jade asked.

  Her daughter rolled her eyes dramatically. “Just Mrs. Spencer’s grandkids, and they’re still babies.”

  “They’re a year younger than you are,” Jade huffed.

  “Two years.” Dez jutted out her lower lip and cocked her head to the side. “And besides, if I stay downstairs, Mrs. Spencer’s gonna make me practice my angel lines for the Christmas play, and it’s just too hard. Can’t I stay up here with you? Mrs. Spencer said it’s all right with her.”

  “Well, it’s not all right with me.”

  “How come?”

  “Because I’ve got to focus on what I’m going to say, and I can’t worry about whether or not you’re sitting there squirming in your seat.” She kissed the top of her daughter’s head then pushed her out the door. “Now get yourself back downstairs. And march.”

  Dez stomped out, staring at her feet. Soon, her light-up tennis shoes distracted her, and she bounced away.

  “Oh, that girl,” Jade groaned and checked to make sure the backs of her earrings hadn’t fallen out. She’d checked them half a dozen times by now, but it was the only thing she could think of to do to get her nerves to settle down.

  Lord, you’ve got to help me get through this.

  Her hands were a clammy, sweaty mess, and she washed them again at the sink. After giving herself one more glance in the mirror to make sure everything was right where it was supposed to be, she walked out the door. She had to head downstairs to have a talk with Dez’s Sunday school teacher. Mrs. Spencer had agreed to come tonight to watch the kids, and Jade felt it was only right that she give Mrs. Spencer fair warning. Dez had been a handful and a half all day. She was already five but had missed the cutoff for kindergarten by a week and a half. It wasn’t even Christmas yet, and already Jade regretted not making a bigger push with the elementary school to accept Dez early. She was acting up nearly every day at the daycare where Jade worked and even gave one of the smaller boys a white-wash when she pushed him down in the snow. Jade had put up with enough of other people’s drama in her own life. There was no way she was going to see her daughter turn into a bully.

  She was halfway to the stairs when someone called her name.

  Jade turned around. “Hey, girl.” She might weigh twice as much as her petite friend, but she didn’t worry about squeezing too tight as she wrapped Aisha up in a hug. “I’m heading on downstairs,” Jade explained. “Got to talk to Dez’s teacher.”

  “Hold on,” Aisha said. “There’s someone here to see you.”

  Jade followed her friend’s darting eyes, which landed on a tall white man in a crisp navy blue trooper’s uniform. Jade scowled. “Who’s that?”

  “New trooper,” Aisha explained. “He just moved to Glennallen from the bush.”

  “Is he joining the church or what?” Jade didn’t like the way he was staring at her.

  The trooper took a few steps closer, and Aisha shuffled nervously. “Sorry, I should have told you sooner,” she whispered, but Jade didn’t have time to figure out what she was talking about.

  The trooper descended on her, hand outstretched enthusiastically. “I’m Ben. You must be Jade.”

  She gave him a glower. “What makes you think that?”

  He gave Aisha a nervous glance, and Jade frowned at him disapprovingly. There were a dozen things annoying about being the only black person in a town as small as Glennallen. Having strangers presume to know her identity was toward the top of the list.

  “Aisha pointed you out,” he answered.

  Oh. That made more sense. Jade cleared her throat and took Ben’s hand into her sweaty palm. “Okay. Well, then, what can I do for you, officer?”

  “I know you’re busy getting ready for tonight’s service, but can I talk to you? Won’t take more than a minute.”

  Jade made a point of turning to look at the bear-shaped clock hanging in the church foyer. “Good, because a minute’s all I got.”

  “Is there some place where we could sit down?”

  Jade shrugged. “It’s a free country, right?” She decided Pastor Reggie wouldn’t be needing his office tonight, seeing as how he was on vacation with his family in the Lower 48. She started to head that way then stopped when Aisha touched her arm.

  “Sorry,” she whispered again. “We started talking outside, and I mentioned that letter. I should have asked you first.”

  “Yeah, you should have.” Jade brushed passed her friend, holding the door open for the trooper. Once they were situated in her pastor’s office, she crossed her arms and stared at him. “Like I said earlier, I don’t have a lot of time. What’s this all about?”

  CHAPTER 2

  Ben seemed to take a lifetime to decide where and how to sit.

  “Are you comfortable?” he asked once they were finally situated.

  Jade didn’t answer. As far as she saw it, she’d never be comfortable. Not held up by some white cop ten minutes before she was supposed to stand up and share her testimony in front of her whole church.

  And for what? That letter was just some stupid ploy. It didn’t mean anything. Jade had lived her life in fear. She was an expert on the subject and had eventually learned that fear can’t kill you.

  And that you don’t go to the police when you’ve got a problem. It was bad enough the daycare where she worked invited the troopers in once a month to read stories to the kids. It was just as well the men who came couldn’t read her mind, or th
ey’d never come back.

  Jade still had her arms crossed, but Ben didn’t seem to know what to do with his. “I saw the announcement in the newspaper,” he finally explained. “Thought I’d come hear you.”

  Is that all he had to say to her? She stared at Pastor Reggie’s stack of Alaska Fishing magazines and waited.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m new to the area and heard a lot of good things about the church.”

  “Mm-hmm. I’m sure you did.”

  Ben glanced at her questioningly. She held his gaze until he looked away.

  Finally, she decided it was time to put this conversation out of its misery. “Listen, if Aisha told you about that letter, I want you to know it’s all under control. It’s totally fine.”

  “Your friend seemed pretty worried about it.”

  Jade shrugged. “She gets like that, but trust me. It’s nothing. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  Ben leaned forward earnestly, his eyes nearly as large as Pastor Reggie’s mounted moose head behind him. “I want you to know this is the kind of thing we take seriously down at the trooper station.”

  “I bet you do.” Jade stood up. “Well, if there’s nothing else, officer, I need to get ready.”

  Ben nodded. “Will you let me know if there’s anything I can do to help?”

  Help? There was a new one. As far as Jade could tell, policemen like him had helped her family far too much already.

  She opened the door of the office, mumbling, “I’m sure I’ll be all right,” as she let herself out.

  CHAPTER 3

  Before Jade could head downstairs to check on her daughter, Aisha hurried toward her. “Listen, I’m sorry about that trooper. I didn’t know he’d want to talk to you right away. I just kind of mentioned it in passing …”

  Jade rolled her eyes, figuring it must be their differences that kept her and Aisha close. Jade had given up any desire for romance or even casual dating, but Aisha would flirt with anybody under the age of fifty. Men in uniform were one of her special weak points. Jade was certain that Ben’s trooper’s badge was all Aisha had to see to start fawning all over him, and what better way to snag his attention than to blab about some threatening note Jade received in the mail?

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jade mumbled. She couldn’t afford to stand here all night and convince Aisha that everything was fine. She’d lost enough time already. Men and women were filing to their seats, smiling at Jade as they passed the family of carved bears welcoming congregants to the service.

  On with the show.

  She straightened her shirt, smoothed out her pants, and walked into the sanctuary with her head held high, resolving to forget about Aisha and that silly trooper. Jade would bet her paycheck from the daycare that Ben would ask Aisha out before Christmas rolled around. She could have him. Jade had a testimony to focus on.

  She made her way to the front row and bowed her head, partly because she wanted to pray and partly so people wouldn’t come up and try to strike up any conversations. She clasped her hands in her lap. Were they still shaking? What was it about tonight’s testimony that had her so worked up? This was Glennallen. There was hardly anyone she hadn’t met in this town, and most of them were already familiar with her story. If anything, tonight was her chance to tell her testimony in her own words so her neighbors wouldn’t have to rely on second- and third-hand information.

  Nothing like a small town in rural Alaska to get the gossip fires roaring like mad.

  Jade shut her eyes. She had to focus her attention on what she was going to say. Had to make sure that her spirit was in the right place.

  Help me, God, she prayed when a shrill, whiny voice interrupted.

  “Mama!”

  Jade snapped her eyes open. “What did I tell you about bugging me when I’m up here?” she hissed, hoping that since she was in the front row, the people behind couldn’t detect the annoyance in her expression. If they knew how exasperated she got with her daughter, they might all think twice about inviting her to share tonight.

  “I’m so bored down there,” Dez groaned and plopped into a chair with a melodramatic sigh.

  Jade pinched her arm. “You get yourself back downstairs, or I’m taking away those new light-up shoes, got it?”

  Dez turned to her mom once more with wide, pleading eyes. “But I’m old enough to be up here, and I promise to be real quiet.”

  “Well, you and I both know it’s impossible for you to be real quiet. Now get downstairs.” The last thing Jade needed was for Dez to hear her testimony tonight and start asking a thousand questions about their past. Jade forced a stern expression as her daughter tilted her head to the side and stuck out her lower lip.

  “None of that now.” Jade cracked a smile and gave her daughter a playful swat on the arm. “Go get yourself downstairs or I’ll tan your behind.”

  “No you won’t.” Dez was smiling now. “You’re always saying that, but I don’t even know what it means.”

  “If you don’t know what it means, then you should be a lot more worried than you are.”

  Dez rolled her eyes again, but it was clear to see she was trying hard not to grin.

  “Go downstairs, baby,” Jade repeated.

  “But Mrs. Spencer’s gonna make me practice my angel lines.”

  “Then practice your angel lines, baby. I swear, I’ve never seen a child more stubborn than you.” She let out her breath, softening her voice. As a new Mom, Jade had resolved to never resort to bribery, but that was before she had any idea what it was like to negotiate with a precocious preschooler. “Tell you what. If you’re real good, I’ll take you out for ice cream after the service.”

  “But it’s too cold,” Dez complained. “You can’t eat ice cream in the middle of winter.”

  Jade found herself wondering for a moment if Dez really was her flesh-and-blood child. “Of course you can. Who’s been raising you, my little Eskimo baby?” She tickled her daughter’s ribs. Dez squealed and ran down the aisle. Jade just hoped she wouldn’t trip anyone on her way out of the sanctuary.

  With Pastor Reggie out of state, Jade wasn’t sure who was going to start the service. These Tuesday night meetings had started out as just a prayer service, but then they added a worship band. Next, Pastor Reggie started to ask people to share their testimonies until finally it was like having a second church meeting in the middle of the week. Jade didn’t mind. With the sun setting by 3:30 at the latest during this phase of the Alaskan winter, it wasn’t as if there were a whole lot else that she and Dez could be doing. Still, with its being so close to Christmas, she would have thought more people would be out of town traveling, but the sanctuary was as full as it was on a typical Sunday.

  Great. On top of the crowd, the couple who usually led worship was out with the flu, and Reggie and his family were out of town, so Jade’s talk was going to be the focal point of the evening. It was hard to think that all these people had come just to hear her. Up until recently, Jade hadn’t thought of her testimony as anything special, especially when you compared it to the stories of Christians who were saved out of lives of alcoholism or addiction or truly destructive behaviors. She didn’t feel ready to talk in front of a group this large, and she certainly didn’t feel like she’d had enough time to pray and prepare herself spiritually, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it at this point.

  One of the elders welcomed everyone to the meeting, offered a quick word of prayer, and then Jade was standing before a church full of people waiting to hear her story.

  CHAPTER 4

  For all of its rocky start, Jade’s testimony picked up until she almost forgot that she was the one speaking. Explaining her history, it felt more like she was one of the dozens of church members sitting in the rows of chairs, listening to her talk about the way God had worked in her life.

  She sensed the general interest in the room, and when she talked about the church she grew up in while
she was still living in Palmer, Alaska, she saw her audience leaning in as if refusing to miss a single word. She painted them a picture with her words, a picture of the extreme control the leadership at Morning Glory International held over her family, over their congregation. At one point, her eyes landed on Ben, the trooper sitting in the back row, and she saw the same interest and curiosity in his expression as she felt from the rest of the church.

  Her hands clammed up for an instant, making it hard to hold onto the microphone. She pried her eyes away from his and avoided looking at that section of the sanctuary for the rest of her speech.

  “The funny thing about it,” she explained, “is that we would have never used a word like cult to describe ourselves. Even though it sounds pretty obvious to other people that what we were involved with was definitely not a healthy Christian church, we didn’t know that. We were all taught, not just the kids but our parents too, that it was a grave sin to disrespect our leaders or question their authority in any way. Since we all upheld and respected the Bible, we believed that it would be wrong to go against anything our pastor said. At least once a month the preacher would talk about how Miriam bad-mouthed Moses and was struck with leprosy. The moral was always that we should never question God’s leaders. I asked my five-year-old about it a few weeks ago, and that particular part of Scripture hasn’t even come up in her Sunday school lessons. She’s never even heard of it, but it was more common at our church than Noah’s ark or Easter Sunday or any of the other Bible stories.

  “It wasn’t just Sundays either. We had meetings just about every night of the week, and if you missed something, you needed to have a really good reason or the elders would start to question if you were backslidden. You couldn’t miss a service if you were sick, either. You were supposed to come even if you were throwing up a lung and have the elders pray for you and anoint you with oil, right there in front of everybody. And if you didn’t recover by the end of the service, that was another time where people would question if you were backslidden. My mom pushed vitamins on all of us like we’d die without them because she knew people would question her spiritual health if her family ever caught a cold.”