A Righteous Wrong

By Lance Nalley

Word Count: 5600

Josh Brannon answered his front door to find a young man looking back at him
nervously. The man was neatly dressed and clean cut, leading Josh to believe he
must be a religious zealot or someone looking to sell him something. His guard was
up immediately.

“Yes?” he asked, with a tone of mild annoyance in his voice.

The man looked back at him silently for a moment.

“If you’re gonna try to sell me something don’t bother,” Josh said.

The man straightened and faced Josh with a visible surge of determination.

“I’m not here to sell you anything,” he said in an intelligent and somehow familiar
voice.

The young man hesitated again, but Josh waited this time, letting the man gather his
thoughts.

“Do you remember a girl named Kristy Shallot?”

The name caused a spasm of fear to rise in Josh’s chest. “Kristy Shallot? Good lord,
that was a long time ago, but yeah, I remember her. Why?”

“She was my mother,” the young man said.

“Was?” Josh replied.

“Yeah. She died a few weeks ago.”

************

Josh was fourteen when he met Kristy. His parents had bought a few acres in the
Ozark Mountains of northern Arkansas and move out of the big city of Los Angeles.
They wanted to live a simpler life, and the rolling wooded hills with year round creeks
running between them appealed to his father’s work-wearied mind. He resigned a
position at a large L.A. law firm and set up a small practice in Huntsville.

It was quite an adjustment for Josh: nearly everything about his life changed. But
when the heat of summer began to wane, he was quickly reminded that at least one
thing had not changed: he still had to go to school.

The school bus stop was about a mile down the dirt road that ran in front of his new
home. This road intersected with another dirt road that curved along beside a rocky
creek for ten miles before it found blacktop. As he trudged up the dusty road the first
day, he noticed a girl walking a hundred feet or so behind him. It was curiosity more
than anything that caused him to slow his pace so she could catch up.

By the time they reached the bus stop, they were walking side-by-side. Kristy
plopped herself up on a stump at the intersection of the two dirt roads and kicked at
its rotting bark with the heels of her worn tennis shoes. The dress she wore was too
loose around her thin waist, and it had a few light stains.

“What’s your name?” Josh asked.

“Kristy. What’s yourn?”

“Josh,” he replied. “What grade are you in?”

“Naunth,” she said, without elaboration.

“Me too,” Josh said. “You think we’ll be in the same class?”

“I couldn’t tell ye fer shore, but I recon it’s likely.”

In spite of her less than pristine appearance, Kristy was about as cute as a fourteen-
year-old girl can be, with dark black hair and vibrant green eyes. She was slim but
not too thin, and she spoke quietly but didn’t seem to be at all shy. Josh was at the
age when girls had suddenly become very interesting. And, there were many things
about this girl that piqued his interest: her small but prominent breasts, her full and
very soft looking lips to mention just two.

“Where’r you’uns from?” She asked, in her very pronounced Ozark accent.

“L.A.,” Josh answered. “How long have you lived here?”

“Sinst I ‘as borned.” She paused and looked at him thoughtfully. “What’s it lauk in
L.A.? I heared there is lots of bad people there.”

“There weren’t any bad people in my neighborhood. They were all nice. Except for
the old man that lived down on the corner. He would yell at you if you stepped on his
lawn.”

“Did you’uns live in a big great house there in L.A?” She pronounced the L and the A
very precisely, as if she had never spoken them before.

“I guess it was a pretty nice house. Nicer than the one we live in now.”

“Tell me bout L.A.” She requested.

As Josh told her about his previous home, she seemed to be studying his face:
looking back and forth from one eye to the other and then at his lips as they moved.
She was so intent upon studying his face that sometimes she seemed preoccupied
with it: as if she wasn’t hearing what he was saying. But as soon as Josh stopped
talking she would prompt him to go on.

They talked for twenty minutes or so, and the school bus roared around the corner in
a cloud of red dust. They climbed on the bus, and Kristy sat in the very front seat,
just behind the driver. Josh was inclined to ride in the back, but knowing no one and
feeling the urge to stay close to Kristy, he sat in the seat directly behind her. Just
before the bus found the paved highway, Kristy left her seat and sat next to Josh.

Josh always wore a baseball cap. This day it was a Dodgers cap: the team of his old
hometown. It served him in a way he had recently found handy. He leaned back in
his seat and held a notebook in his lap, pretending to read it. He tilted his head in a
way that kept Kristy from seeing his eyes but which gave him a clear view of her
from the nose down. He examined her thoroughly from nose to knees and found
himself becoming intrigued by what he saw.

Suddenly, Kristy’s face was under the bill of his hat peering into his eyes amusedly.

“Whatcha doin unda there?” she asked with a grin. Her face was less than six inches
from his.

“Nothin,” came his automatic response.

She leaned into his ear and whispered, “Yer a liar. You was lookin at me. I could tell.”
She moved back to look into his face again for his answer.

This strange action by the girl suddenly struck him as funny, and he started laughing
as she looked at him from only inches away. He expected she might get angry at his
laughter, but instead a broad smile broke across her face as she looked back and
forth from one eye to the other.

“Yer a silly goose,” she said, almost laughing herself, and pulled his cap down over
his eyes.

It became their custom to meet each morning at the end of Josh’s driveway for the
walk to the bus stop. They talked of their families and of friends at school along with
any other topic that came to mind on these daily walks. But it seemed that Kristy
preferred to save most of the conversation for the bus stop and the bus ride so she
could watch Josh’s face as he talked. Sometimes she even mouthed the words as he
spoke them, and when he caught her doing this she exhibited no embarrassment
whatsoever. She merely grinned at him, as if she found her own habit amusing. She
seemed to have no insecurity in his presence. She stood or sat very close to him and
sometimes held her face so close to his as they talked that he had trouble focusing
on her.

Kristy’s eyes were as bright as shiny new money. Freckles dotted her nose, and
whenever she looked at Josh he could not help but feel good inside. She made his
chest swell, and he had an almost overwhelming urge to hug her when she looked at
him with her fearless, trusting face. There seemed to be a magnet drawing him to
her. He did not understand it yet, but he was falling in love.

It was a brilliant Fall afternoon, sunshine gleaming off the bare branches of the trees,
when they stopped to sit for a while in a small clearing next to a stream, a short
distance from the road. Frost had yet to kill the tall grass, and they laid down in it
together and looked up at the sky.

“Josh, d’ ya think I’m perty?” She rolled over and looked at him like she always did:
like she was trying to see his thoughts.
Josh looked at his hands and picked at a fingernail. “Of course, I think you’re pretty,”
he said a little sheepishly.

She rolled back and looked at the sky, in deep thought by the look in her eyes.

“D’ya wanna kiss me?” She turned toward him again, her eyes wet and pleading.

“Yeah,” he replied meekly. He definitely wanted to kiss her, but if he hadn’t he would
not have said so. He could never bring himself to hurt her feelings.

“Well, go on then.”

He rolled toward her tentatively, and she moved closer to him. Their lips came
together for a brief moment, then parted. They each looked into the others eyes. A
hungered look was there, shining like the eyes of a famished child through a bakery
window. Kristy did not move away, and Josh moved his lips slowly back to her’s.
The warmth and softness of them pulled him closer to her, and he quickly found
himself wrapped around her, his tongue searching her mouth, and his groin driving
him closer to her and harder against her.

Josh rolled on top of Kristy, and her legs opened to receive him. He pushed his groin
into hers desperately, not quite knowing why but knowing he must. He cried out in
frustration and confusion. He wanted to be inside her. He wanted to melt into her,
and he did not understand why, just that he wanted it more than life itself.

“Please, Josh, please,” Kristy moaned in his ear.

He said nothing, but reached between them and unbuttoned his jeans. The relief
was nearly miraculous, and he gasped loudly. He pushed against her again and felt
the warm wetness of her beneath the material of her panties. Kristy reached
between them and pulled the crotch of her panties to the side, and he entered her
immediately. Kristy gasped in his ear and pushed back against him.

Nothing in life could have prepared him for the intensity of the feeling. It shook him
from head to toe, and he lost all knowledge of anything but his body and hers. A
flood of ecstasy overwhelmed him, as they pushed against each other and cried out
in frantic need. Almost immediately an explosion rocked his body with such intensity
he nearly lost consciousness. A river of the most thrilling quality burst from his loins
in jerking spasms. He groaned loudly as the urgency drained from him, and
weakness took him over.

Josh dropped to his elbows and they looked at each other, panting rapidly, as if they
had been lost for the last ten minutes and were still unsure of where they had been.
When the fog began to clear from his mind, Josh lifted himself from her and rolled to
his back, working hard to catch his breath. Kristy turned to him, examined his face,
and put her hand on his cheek.

“Are you…..Can I….I didn’t …hurt you, did I?” Josh asked. He suddenly realized he
had very little recollection of exactly what had just happened. It was all a fluid blur.

Kristy just shook her head and laid it on his chest.

“Yer heart’s a beatin like a house a fire,” she said, her voice a mere whisper. “I wisht
I could touch it.” She listened for a few more moments and lifted her face to his.
She kissed the end of his chin, and he saw a tear run down her cheek.

“What’s a matter,” he asked, suddenly thinking he actually had hurt her.

“Nothin’s a matter,” she said. “Nothin. I don’t know.”

Josh tried to get up, but she held him down.

“I aint hurt. I jest don’t wanna leave you, that’s all.” She pulled him closer.

“You don’t have to leave,” he said.

“I mean, never. I never wanna leave you.”

They held each other for several minutes, but they knew they had to leave soon.
Kristy reluctantly got to her feet, they found the road, and headed toward home.

As they paused at the end of the driveway to Josh’s house, he took her hand and
turned to face her. It was Friday, and he hated to think of two whole days without
her. Monday seemed like an eternity away.

“Kristy,” he said nervously, “you think I could come visit you at home sometime?”

Her gaze dropped from his face to the button on the front of his shirt, and she
silently shook her head.

“How come?” he asked.

“My papa don’t allow strangers at our home,” she replied.

“I’m not a stranger.”

“To me ya ain’t,” she said as she brought her gaze back to his face. “But to papa ya
are.” Her eyes fell to his shirt again. “He’nt like it none, and if ya come around he’s
likely to fret.”

“I’m gonna miss you, you know.” He said.

“I know.” She replied without looking up.

Josh lifted her chin gently with his finger. She looked at him as he leaned in and
kissed her goodbye. Josh knew he could not stay away from her for long.

Soon after moving to the Ozarks, Josh learned about squirrel hunting. All the boys at
school did it, and it became his favorite past time. He wandered the woods every
weekend and had become very familiar with the terrain. He knew all the creeks and
all the dirt roads within a mile. And he knew Kristy’s house was not too far from his,
and he knew in which direction.

The next day Josh went squirrel hunting as he always did on Saturday mornings. He
packed a lunch in a small backpack, loaded his 22 rifle, and headed off with a
goodbye kiss from his mother.

He came upon Kristy’s house about a mile up from his driveway. It was actually a log
cabin. It was at least fifty years old, built with logs cut from the surrounding forest,
and chinked with concrete. It had a rusty tin roof and a fireplace made of native
rock. There were chickens and pigs in the yard, along with a few old junk cars
scattered around the bare dirt lot. Laundry hung on the barbed wire fence, and a big
dog lay on the front porch next to the rough slab door. He had never seen a house
like this before. It was something he thought no longer existed in modern America.

He stayed at a safe distance and watched. He saw nothing for a long time, so he
settled in and ate his lunch: a bologna sandwich and an apple. He drank from a
canteen on his belt.

As Josh watched from the woods, the front door squeaked open and Kristy came
outside. She threw some scraps to the chickens and sat on a bucket next to a pile of
old lumber. She sat for ten minutes, and just as Josh was about to signal her, he
heard a car coming up the road. Kristy heard it too, and jumped from the bucket,
ducking behind an old car. A few second later, a white Ford truck roared into the yard
and lurched to a stop a mere twenty feet from the front door. A man got out of the
truck, walked up to the house, and in the door.

That must be Kristy’s dad, Josh thought. His clothes were dirty, like he had been
working on greasy machinery. He had a thick black beard and lots of hair sticking
out from under a John Deere baseball cap.

As soon as the man entered the house, Josh heard him yelling. He couldn’t
understand what the man was saying, but he sounded angry. The door squeaked
open again and the man stepped out, yelling into the cluttered yard.

“Girl, ya best get yourself in this house right now.” He looked around the dirt lot. “We
aint holdin dinner for ya.”

He stepped down into the yard and walked to the truck. He opened the door and
reached inside, brought out a twelve pack of beer, and carried it back into the house.

Josh waited until late afternoon for Kristy to come out of hiding and go back inside,
but she never did. He saw her move around the yard to different hiding spots from
time to time. Her father came outside every once in a while to urinate. The longer
Josh waited the more unsteady the man got on his trips out to empty his bladder.
Apparently, he was intent upon drinking all the beer he had brought home.

Josh moved along the side of the wooded hill until he was directly behind the house,
close to Kristy’s newest hiding spot. He could see her sitting on a log, picking at the
hem of her dress. Her knees swayed back and forth, and she seemed to be humming
to herself. He crept down until he was at the edge of the woods and whistled a short
sharp note. Kristy turned and looked directly at him immediately. She squinted as if
she couldn’t quite see him, so he stood and stepped into the clear. She jumped from
her seat and ran toward him. He started to come toward her but she held her hand
out in a stop gesture.

“Whatcha doin here?” she asked, when she got close enough for him to hear her.
“I just wanted to see you,” he replied.

“Butcha caint be here. My papa will be mad as heck if he catches you here.”

“He won’t catch me, he’s drunk.” Josh replied.

“That’s why you caint be here. Now get home.”

“Give me a kiss and I’ll leave.” He said.

She pushed him back into the woods and followed as he took her hand. Once they
had gotten far enough in to conceal themselves, she wrapped her arms around his
waist and looked up at his face.

“My papa’s mean when he’s a drinkin. And if he ever caught us he would kill me.”

“Is that why you’re hiding outside?”

“Yeah, but he’ll be passed out perty soon. Then I’ll go in, and momma will give me
my supper.”

“It’s gonna be dark soon.”

“I know. Ya better get home.”

She took his face in her hands and pulled him to her, kissing his lips.

“Come with me.” He said suddenly.

He took her hand and led her further into the woods to a giant oak tree surrounded
by blackberry bushes. He pulled her down on top of him as he lay down in the carpet
of leaves. He began to kiss her like he had the day before, parting her lips with his
tongue and searching inside for hers. He felt her giving in to him, but suddenly she
pushed away.

“I caint. I gotta get back t’the house. Get home. I’ll see ya on Monday.”

Kristy turned and ran away toward the house without another word, leaving him to
his lonely walk home.

Most of the next week passed without event. The weather was bad: windy and rainy,
so Josh’s mother drove them to the bus stop and waited with them in the car until it
arrived. They sat together on the bus, holding hands under their books but missed
the walks together and the time alone.

On Thursday, the sun shone brightly in the newly washed sky, and Josh was happy to
be able to be alone with Kristy again. The walks to and from the bus stop had
become sacred to him. He looked forward to them and pined for a chance to touch
Kristy every minute they were apart. He could see in her smile, as they met that
morning, that she had missed him too.

They held hands as they walked along the muddy road, and suddenly Josh pulled her
toward the creek that ran alongside the road.
“Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

“We ought not go far,” she replied. “We maht miss the bus.”

“We won’t miss it. We have plenty of time.”

He led her down to the edge of the creek and along its bank for a short distance.
They came to a bend in the creek where it turned against a high rocky ledge. When
the water was high it had worn a cavern into the side of the ledge, which was
somewhat protected from the weather and completely hidden from sight. The water
was low in the streambed, leaving the floor of the cavern sandy and dry.

Josh took off his coat, threw it down, inside up, and sat down on one half of it.

“Sit down here with me,” he said.

Kristy hesitated for only a second, then sat down, moving up close to him. She held
her face within inches of his, her eyes shining.

“Why did ya brang me here?” she asked with a knowing twinkle in her eye and a grin
on her lips.

“I don’t know,” Josh replied sheepishly. “I just wanted to be alone with you.”

“I missed you,” Kristy said.

“You’ve seen me every day,” he said, knowing full well what she meant.

Kristy ran her hand over the front of his shirt and looked up at his face.

“Aint’cha gonna kiss me?” she asked.

Josh licked his lips and watched as she did the same, and leaned in to kiss her. As
they kissed he felt the same urgency he had the week before, in that patch of grass
along the road.

They made love, but this time they took more time. They removed their clothes
instead of pawing at each other through them. And, it lasted longer than the first
time. When they were finished, they covered themselves in their clothes and lay next
to each other for several minutes, saying nothing. Then Kristy rolled toward him and
laid her head on his chest.

“Let’s stay here all day,” she said.

“You mean skip school.”

“Shore. I thank we done missed the school bus anyhow. I don’t wanna be away
from you today.”

They stayed in the cavern all day, making love over and over. And each time it
became a little better and lasted longer. As Josh began to gain control of his own
body, he also began to notice her response to him. He watched in complete awe and
began to recognize the things that brought her pleasure. And as he made love to her,
he was falling more and more in love with her.

“Kristy,” he said, as they lay next to each other after their last love making session.
“You know, I….” He hesitated then rolled toward her. He laid his arm over her and
whispered in her ear, “I love you.”

She pushed away far enough to see his face. “I know,” she said. “And I love you too,
Josh. I have sinst we first met.”

Josh looked puzzled. “How did you know?”

“I just seen ya and knew. I don’t know why, I jest did.”

They got dressed and headed back up the dirt road toward home, but when they got
to the end of the driveway Josh could not leave her to walk on alone. Instead, he
walked with her until they neared her driveway, then backtracked home. Even then,
it was all he could do to tear himself from her.

The next morning Kristy did not show up at the bus stop. Josh was heart broken and
worried that something might have happened to her, but there was nothing to be
done about it. So he went to school, hoping her father had decided to drive her to
school that day. He had never brought her to school before, but Josh hoped against
hope that he had this time. But when he arrived at school, he could not find her.

Josh barely slept that night, and when he did he dreamed of Kristy. She was all his
mind could see all night long. And, in the morning he knew he had to go back to her
house and see her.

He left on his usual Saturday morning squirrel hunt but went directly to Kristy’s
house. He watched from a thickly wooded hiding spot on the side of a hill about a
hundred feet from the cabin. There were no curtains on the windows, and he could
see into the house. Kristy’s father sat at the table inside. He wore no shirt, and his
thick black beard and hair were matted and straggled.

A woman walked by the window, and Kristy’s father slapped her face. He hit her hard
enough that Josh heard it clearly from his hiding spot in the woods. And he yelled at
the woman, but Josh couldn’t quite make out what he was saying.

Josh had become very good at moving quietly through the woods, and he used this
new skill to creep closer to the cabin. When he was at the very edge of the clearing,
he stopped behind a clump of blackberry vines. His position was still elevated enough
to see into the window, and he could hear every word that was said.

“Where in hell d’ya think I’m gonna get that kinda money, huh?” Kristy’s father
yelled.

The woman, Josh assumed it was Kristy’s mother, stood in front of the man. Her
head hung low as she fidgeted with her apron strings.

“God damn if ya ain’t always awantin somethin. I give ya a house and food in yor
belly, and what do I get? Wants, that’s what I get. All I ever hear is, I want, I need.”
He stood up, grabbed the woman by her arms, and shook her.

“You want somethin you ain’t got you better just figure how to get it on yer own,
cause you ain’t gettin it from me.”

With that he pushed her backward. She tripped and fell with a loud crash. Josh heard
glass break and scatter across the floor. He heard Kristy’s mother begin to cry, and
Kristy ran into the room.

“Leave her be,” she screamed.

Josh had never seen Kristy act this way. He wouldn’t have thought it possible. She
was all of five feet tall and ninety-five pounds, but she attacked her father with the
ferocity of a full-grown woman protecting her child. She ran at him, angry tears
streaming down her face, and kicked him in the shin with a well-aimed blow that
caused him to curse and back away from her, hopping on one leg. Kristy ran to her
mother.

Josh could not see Kristy or her mother from his position, but he could still see her
father. He watched the rage building in the man’s face as he recovered from the blow
to his leg. His chest heaved and his fists clenched tightly at his sides.

“Ya fuckin lil bitch! What’n hell makes ya think ya can do yor papa that a way?” The
man bellowed.

He unbuckled his belt and pulled it out of its loops.

“Git yor ass back here, little missy. I’m a gonna teach ya right from wrong.”

Kristy’s father disappeared from Josh’s view as he moved across the room to where
Kristy and her mother were. Josh could picture them cowering in the corner, and he
could hear them crying as the angry man approached them.

“No, no!” Kristy screamed wildly from the corner of the cabin.

Josh watched as her father dragged Kristy by her hair. He pulled her, face down, onto
the table as he whipped at her legs and buttocks with the belt. She kicked and
screamed, but he held her by the hair, beating her over and over with the belt.

Suddenly, Josh realized he had raised his rifle and sighted it on the man’s ear. His
finger was on the trigger when a thought about the consequences of pulling that
trigger momentarily flicked through his consciousness. But as he considered the
thought, he heard the rifle crack, and a hole suddenly appeared in the window glass.
The man in his sights stiffened and let go of Kristy’s hair. He stumbled backward a
few steps, and his hand went to the side of his head as blood began to stream from
the wound. He pulled his hand away and looked at the blood on it, then fell to the
floor.

Josh was shocked at what he had just done. He had never actually decided to kill the
man, but he had done it nonetheless. He was frozen in fear for a moment, until he
heard the dog on the porch begin to bark, and saw it coming around the corner of
the house at a dead run.
Josh jumped to his feet and began running as fast as he could in the dense forest.
The dog was behind him: he could hear it barking as it crashed through the dead
leaves. Josh dared not look back for fear of running into a tree, but he could hear the
dog getting closer. His heart was pounding so hard he thought his head would burst,
and his breath came in great gasps.

Just when he thought he could run no more, he tripped over a dead limb and fell,
burying his face in the litter of the forest floor. The dog was on him immediately. It
grabbed the leg of his pants in its teeth and shook it like a dirty rag. Josh twisted
onto his back, bringing his rifle around with him. He kicked at the dog with his free
foot with no effect. He raised the gun and aimed at the dog’s shoulder. He shot once,
then twice. The dog kept snarling and shaking Josh’s leg. He shot again, and a fourth
time, and the dog yelped. He shot again: another yelp. The dog let go and backed
away, wobbling back and forth on its weakening legs. As it backed away, it could no
longer hold its self upright, and it sat heavily, then fell to its side: its tongue lolling
out onto the leaf litter.

Josh got shakily to his feet, keeping his eye on the dog, still not convinced it was
dead. But it did not move when he poked it with the barrel of his rifle, and its eyes
were dark and still.

Josh ran until he could run no more, then walked the rest of the way home. Fear
overwhelmed him as thoughts of what could happen to him raced through his mind.
He had just committed murder, he thought. He could go to prison for the rest of his
life or even be sentenced to death. How could he walk into his home and look his
parents in the face knowing he had just killed a man?

But it wasn’t murder, he thought. He had shot to defend Kristy. But, would anyone
else see it his way? Would anyone believe a kid was justified in shooting a man who
was disciplining his child? He did not know, but he decided it was not a chance he
was willing to take. This would have to be his deepest darkest secret, and no one,
no matter how trust worthy, would ever hear about it from him.

**********

“What is your name?” Josh asked the young man. He invited him to sit as they
entered the house.

“Joshua, sir,” the man answered. He had a battered old book in his hands and he
held it out to Josh. “This was my mother’s diary. I found it in her things after she
died. I think you will want to read it.”

Josh took the book from him carefully. The idea that this young man might have
been named after him came to him immediately. “How did she die, Joshua?”

“Lung cancer. She was sick for a long time.”

A light came on in Josh’s mind. “How old are you, Joshua?”

“I just turned thirty-two a few months ago.” The young man hesitated for a
moment and then said nervously, “And yes, according to my mother’s diary, I am
your son.”
Josh was not surprised by this revelation. By the time Joshua said it he had decided
it might be the case. Why else would this man come to see him?

“Then you’ve read it?” Josh asked.

“Yes, many times in the last few weeks.” Joshua calmed a bit when there was no
reaction from Josh in response to the news of his parentage.

“What does it say?” Josh asked.

“She always loved you but was afraid to tell anyone that you were my father. She
knew you had killed my grandfather and didn’t want you to go to prison, so she kept
the secret to her grave. She and my grandmother moved to Little Rock, as you may
know, after my grandfather died, and we have lived there ever since.”

Tears welled up in Josh’s eyes slowly as the young man talked.

Joshua continued, “I didn’t know you existed until Mom died, and I found that.” He
pointed to the old book in Josh’s hands. “Luckily, you never moved, so you weren’t
hard to find.”

The tears began to run down Josh’s face silently.

“I always hoped she would come back here and find me.” He looked up into his son’s
eyes and he could see her there. “I’m very glad you found me, Joshua. I think I’ve
been waiting for you.”