The Uninnocent by Bradford Morrow Page A

Prince of Darkness himself. Harrison floated back downstairs, gathered my wife in his arms and kissed her, put his forefinger to his lips, and pointed in my direction. I would like to believe she might have fainted, standing there in the arms of this man, staring at her blind husband not thirty feet away. To the contrary, she sweetly called my name, breaking from Harrison’s embrace, and asked me the same question he had, patting my head, offering to help me get back to my room. I needed more rest, she cooed. After all, we had less than a week before we were committed to going to Louisville for the Christian Recovery Convention, at which I was to be one of the headliners. Bed did seem a desirable destination at that moment.
    â€œYes, bed,” I answered, and allowed her to take me by the arm, as she had countless times over the last decade, and lead me into my monk’s cell. I fell asleep immediately.
    Seeing the world, I had not yet come to know how to reckon it. That was, I always felt, God’s distinct purview, His task. Yet in the days that followed, seeing what I saw was judgment enough and though Job was my cherished Old Testament hero, I would prove to be no Job. Seeing, like my original blinding, was an unexpected trauma, a crossroads. The more I reflect upon what has happened, whether from a vantage of darkness or light, the more I see life as an investigation into just this: How much pain can we tolerate before we either turn ourselves humbly over to our God, that His will be done, or turn on the sadistic Bastard with every fiber of our being? Just how He found the fortitude, tenacity, and nerve to look down on me from on high these ten long suffering years, knowing all the while that every word of encouragement I offered to the far-flung members of His miscellaneous flock was fouled by the adultery and avarice of those who pretended to sustain His wretched servant, I cannot pretend to know. The myriad ways of the Almighty are, it has been often recorded, mysterious. We mere mortals who fail to know our own hearts can’t begin to fathom what motivates His. Not that my poor wife’s weakness of the flesh, her infidelity, and materialist lust are in any way the fault of the Precious Savior. Nor that my benefactor and proponent, Harrison, without whose support I might never have found my audience, all those hungry souls who have dined—I hope nutritiously—at my inspirational banquets, was guided by the hand, if not the hoof, of the Lamb. As I lay in the equally dark but somehow less blurry shadows of my new world, as deeply dejected as I ever was when I first lost my sight, I decided to follow my instincts and see what there was to see. My life became a blindman’s bluff.
    Sarah checked in on me later that same day, concerned why I’d been stumbling around in the living room. “You feeling all right?” she wanted to know.
    â€œFine, just fine,” I assured her, and, testing the waters, asked if I couldn’t sleep upstairs with her tonight. We generally had separate bedrooms on the road, and so often slept apart at home. Surely, I reasoned, the Lord would want a wife to abide some snoring now and then, if only for the sake of Old Testament conjugal duty.
    Though I stared at the wall behind her, the look of dismay that shrouded her face, like Beelzebub’s specter, was unmistakable. Her voice smilingly assured me that we needed to take it easy during this week off, while the frown on her lips mutely bespoke another message. I wanted to say, How could I have been so blind to your true feelings all this time? but kept my own counsel and meekly agreed. That seemed to brighten her mood. Her face relaxed as she brushed back her frosted hair and asked what kind of soup I wanted Martita to bring me for lunch. “Barley,” I said, and watched my estranged wife’s hips pitch softly back and forth as she left the sanctum.
    The children were my only hope. My