TWELVE DAYS OF REIGN

REDEMPTIONS CALL

One by one, late in the midnight hour, the preacher's kids went home starting with Monica, then Debbie, and finally Benjamin. I helped Joseph back to his room after the preacher was taken to the morgue. Once Joseph was in bed and tucked in, I turned off the light and went to leave but I was stopped short. He grabbed my arm and pulled me close, drawing me into the bed with him. My heart began to race. Reuben had done this to me before. For a brief moment, I thought it was him.
"Joseph, don't," I softly pleaded on a breath.
My voice fell on deaf ears and he pulled me into the bed anyway. His arms came around me like the warm blanket I laid on the preacher before he died. There were tears in his eyes, the kind that held an abyss of sorrows. He thumbed away a tear from my eye looking me full in the face.
"Just stay with me awhile," he begged on a breath. "I don't want to be alone tonight."
Before I could say or do anything he pressed me against himself and rested his chin on top of my head. He rubbed my shoulders as his embrace tightened and loosened and tightened again.
I stayed there in his arms long after he had fallen asleep. Not because I could not escape his grasp but, because I did not want to.

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Joseph woke up early in the morning to find Reign fast asleep in his arms. Her face was tilted up as if to bathe in the new dawn's light that spilled into the hospital window. Her small thin fingers limply rested on his chest where he had been shot. Her tussled red hair caught the edges of the light, forming golden specks in the loose strands.
Joseph lightly brushed her hair back out of her freckled face. His eyes lowered to her pink pouty lips and he traced his finger over the plump flesh.
"My God, you're beautiful."
Reign began to stir from his touch. She shifted her head away and moaned with a stretch. She parted her light blue eyes looking about the room. He could see it in her face that for a brief moment she did not recognize where she was. But, when she turned her head back around and saw him she remembered.
"Mornin'," he greeted.
"Good morning," she smiled. Her hand went up to his face, soft and concerned as if it were natural.
"Are you alright, Joseph?"
Joseph didn't answer. Perhaps it was because the sun was on her face beaming its radiance around her like a celestial halo. He supposed it could have been the warmth of her touch or the way his arm pillowed her red head, even as she spoke, but she looked more like a woman than she ever had before. A woman he could see spending the rest of his life with.

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"What do you mean?" Reuben shouted into the phone on the other side of the bulletproof glass. "What do you mean he's dead?"
"I mean Daddy died last night. He's dead!" Benjamin shouted back slamming his fist on the desk. "He's gone! Stacy is gone! Your children are living with Stacy's sister and her husband! They're gone! Everyone is gone, Reuben, because of you!"
Tears swelled in Reuben's eyes as he looked down at his bandaged hand. He could not move the fingers on it and the surgeon said they would have to amputate it tomorrow because gangrene was already beginning to set in.
"What happened to you? Huh?" Benjamin asked. "Why did you become this way? What happened?"
Reuben flicked his eyes up to his little brother. Among his siblings, he and Benjamin looked the most like their mother. They could both pass for white. Because of their blue eyes, they often did.
"I don't know," Reuben admitted lowering his gaze from him. "I don't know."
"You've strayed so far from the Lord, Reuben."
"Stop bringing God up. This has nothing to do with Him."
Benjamin fell back in his chair as a tear left his eye.
"That's the problem right there," he said. "You keep taking Him out of the situations of your life and now look at you, behind bars, behind glass talking on a phone to me and because of what? An illness?"
"I'm not sick!"​
"Well, you sure aren't well, Reuben!" Benjamin countered.
Reuben heaved a sigh on the phone and shut his eyes.
"I don't need you to preach to me, Benjamin. I'm not in the mood."
"I didn't come here to preach to you. I've come to say goodbye."
"Goodbye?" Reuben's eyes opened, searching Benjamin's tear ridden face. "Goodbye for what?"
"I'm not coming back to see you," Benjamin said. "At least I don't think I am. It's too early to tell. But, right now the sight of you turns my stomach. I need some time. I came only to tell you about Daddy. We are planning his funeral for Saturday at the church. He'll be buried with Mom."
"And what about Reign," his jaw flexed. "What are you all doing with her?"
Benjamin's brow furrowed.
"You talk about her like she's property or something."
Reuben's eyes narrowed on him. "She is."
"Reuben!" Benjamin wanted to reach through the glass and shake some sense into him. "What happened to you? You're my big brother. I used to look up to you."
Reuben's head dropped, shutting his eyes. He remembered well how Benjamin looked up to him when they were young. He followed him everywhere like a puppy. He told him more than once how he wanted to be just like him when he grew up.
Reuben exhaled a heavy sigh not knowing what to say. It had been a long time since he talked to Benjamin about personal things. His thoughts, how he felt, how life was. Benjamin had turned out to be more like their father than even Joseph. He was a deacon in the church and even contemplating becoming a minister like their father had been. How could he have told him everything that was going on in his heart? It would have broken him. But now that the cat was out of the bag, what was there to lose?
"I don't know what happened to me," he confessed. "It's like I know what I'm doing is wrong, but I can't help it."
"Reuben, there is a sin that easily messes us up because we like it and we will disregard every voice of reason because we lust after it with our minds, hearts, and bodies. Unless we put it in God's hands, we will never be free of it. It is sin. It will hold us longer than we want to stay and take us further than we ever intended to go. We are no match for it alone. Only the power of Christ can set us free from sin, Reuben."
A tear left his eye.
"I know," he whispered on a breath. "I know."
"If you know then what have you done to fix this? Your lust has caused you to harm how many others? Look, I know Reign and Stacy weren't the only ones. Who else? How many more?"
Reuben shook his head keeping his head down. He began sobbing on the phone.
"Too many."
Benjamin's head fell back on his shoulders lowering the phone from his ear for a moment. He could only imagine how Reuben used his badge to fulfill his lusts. The thought was harrowing.
Benjamin set the phone back to his ear.
"The reason why you are here is not only because God wanted to stop you while there was still an ounce of conscience left in you, but because you messed with the wrong one."
Reuben wiped a few tears away.
"What do you mean?"
"Reign," Benjamin answered leaning forward. "You messed with Reign. She was saved eight weeks ago. Did you know?"
Reuben's brow furrowed.
"Reign is saved?"
"Yes," Benjamin nodded, "She is saved and it was while you were raping her in Joseph's house that she called on God to save her for the first time since her conversion. That is why your hand is blown and you are in here, because you messed with the wrong one for the last time, Reuben."
Reuben grew as still as a statue, staring at Benjamin in awe. He had not expected to hear that. Reign, the whore, gave her life to Christ, and when she prayed He came to rescue her, proving that those who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
"Now, she will always know that Christ is a very present help in times of trouble," Benjamin said. "Think about that, Reuben. You're in a lot of trouble right now. Your hand is going to be cut off. A trial will convene, a sentence will be given, judgment will be pronounced. But, you and I both know that God can make the difference in every situation of life. You may not ever get out of prison, but the Lord can make how your days are spent inside blessed because you called on Him. I don't know if the Lord will decree that you sit on death row until it's time for you to die for killing Stacy. But if you call on God, Reuben, and ask Him to forgive you and to save you, you may spend your life on death row and never make it to the chair. You don't know. If you repent and plead with Him with your whole heart, who's to say if God would have mercy on you and save your hand despite what the reports say."
Reuben glanced down at his hand.
"Reuben, do you hear me?"
Reuben nodded. "I hear you."
"Who's to say that the Lord isn't waiting on you as well, to show you that He still saves to the utmost, Reuben. It's not too late. God is still your God. You're just in a backslidden condition. Call on Him. Push pride aside and call on God. Who's to say what all He won't do."
One of the guards came up to Reuben's side.
"Time's up."
"Reuben," Benjamin set the flat of his hand to the bulletproof glass. "I'll come again. I won't give up on you."
Reuben set his hand on the glass over his and hung up the phone. Reuben stood up and walked between two officers through the corridors and back to his cell. He stood there in the middle of his space while the cell doors clanked and locked shut.
He had gone rogue on God. Left Him behind as he lived his life the way he wanted. He had never expected everything to get this far. Was it too late to come back to Him? Had he done too much wrong for his voice to find God's ear? His head inclined a notch thinking of Reign. He suspected she felt the same way before she accepted Christ as her Savior. He knew her well enough to know that she hesitated to pray knowing she was in a bad place. Yet, just as Benjamin said, the Lord showed up for her and caused his gun to misfire. The outside world would say that God had nothing to do with it. She was just lucky. But, Reuben knew better because...he knew God.
Reuben ran his fingers over his bandaged hand and sunk to his knees, knowing this was where he needed to start.
"Forgive me," he prayed. "Father God, in Jesus' name, forgive me for all I've done wrong. For hurting women, killing my wife," he added with a sob. "My beautiful Stacy. For losing my children, for hurting my family and so much more. Forgive me, my God, in Jesus' name. Forgive me. Please welcome me back into your mercies and your grace. And if it's not too much to ask, save my hand. Even if you don't, I pray Lord, spare my life."
Reuben stayed on his knees in prayer for the rest of the day, and half way through the night, repenting and calling on the Lord.
​

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Reuben waited in the doctor's office the next day. The two officers stood on either side of the room while the doctor undressed his hand. The doctor sprayed disinfectant on the wound and cleaned it. He raised an eyebrow and turned Reuben's hand over, then back again.
"What is it?" Reuben asked.
"I could have sworn gangrene had set in," he said. "I know it was gangrene. I even took a picture of it to show the surgeon and he agreed. But, I don't see any trace of it."
Reuben glanced between his hand and the doctor.
"What are you saying?"
"It appears to be good tissue forming on the edges of the wound," the doctor tilted his glasses up, looking Reuben in the eye. "Your hand appears to be healing."
"What?" he breathed. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," he chuckled to himself. "It looks like you'll be keeping your hand after all. Though I doubt you'll gain function in it."
Tears swelled in Reuben's eyes. His lips quivered.
"We'll see," he said lifting his hand to eye view. "Who's to say what all God will or won't do."