In Her Eyes

By Gary Dentino

In Her Eyes is a novel that takes readers on a journey to a deeper understanding of the crucifixion. The main character leads a life of redemption, and ultimately inspires others. This is a novel for those seeking God's love, forgiveness, and guidance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Harbor Press
• Release date: Jun 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201411480

Gary Dentino

Gary L. Dentino is a retired school superintendent, principal, and teacher. Currently he serves as an adjunct professor at Rowan University. Gary ls an avid writer who lives in New Jersey with his wife, Laurie. The couple has one child, Anthony, who is a high school teacher and track and field coach.

Book preview

Chapter One

TERROR

He walked into the enormous stone building with a sense of calm and assurance.  After he handed the teller a note, the young man looked away to determine his escape route.  She shuddered, eventually gasping, before pleading with him, but he was focused on his exit plan and barely noticed her.  His hands began shaking noticeably, and his mouth became annoyingly dry.  The troubled man wanted to run, yet he composed himself a bit and refocused.  Finally, he looked toward the bank teller again; this time he saw in her eyes the terror he brought.  She looked frail while displaying a cowering posture that spoke to him.  For the first time in many years, he was able to reach within the darkest places of his heart and see deep into the soul of another.  He placed the gun into his jacket pocket before telling her he was not going to hurt her or anyone else.  He dropped to his knees while holding his hands over his face as he wept.  His body shook with forces that were crippling.  His heart raced and ached.  The young man felt a crippling pain as he trembled helplessly. 

Within minutes, there was a team of police officers upon him.  He made no effort to escape their hold.  They led him to the police van, then to headquarters, where he was processed for attempted bank robbery.  He confessed while repeatedly asking that he be given a chance to rehabilitate.  He wanted to right his wrong.  In his pain, the young man found the desire for what he never before understood or wished for, and it all happened so quickly.  It seemed as if new thoughts were suddenly injected into him like an antidote designed to save his life.

David Bradstan Evans was a kind child who recalled vividly the beatings by his father.  The stocky, brash, and bold man often came home drunk and angry.  David and his late mother hid together when he was in such a state, but they were always found, and they suffered for their attempts to hide.  They tried over and over to forgive the man they somehow loved and wanted to respect.  David tried desperately to protect his mother from the beatings. He was never successful, until the day before his twelfth birthday, when he hid in a closet knowing he would eventually encounter his father.  David beat him with a baseball bat he brought with him to the closet.  As his father lay bloodied on the ground, David threatened his father’s life, and he made him promise to never beat him or his mother ever again.  His father agreed and David spared the old man’s life.  He later stole a gun in case his father broke his half of the bargain. Though just twelve, David declared an end to the terror he and his mother endured.  His father took his warning to heart, and he somehow found the means to control his drunken rages and stop the beatings.

The years were not kind to David.  His mother died just two years later, and at just fourteen, he lived with a father he could not understand but who he knew needed him in many ways.  The deeply troubled man often called upon his only son often to bring structure and order to his life, something that he was unable to provide for himself.  David endured, and in his turmoil, he too made poor decisions that polluted his life and led to the charges now pressing.

David wanted God to make him a better person and bring him a better life.  He never asked, for he wondered why God would allow him to endure the childhood he hated, and he repeatedly asked why God allowed his mother to die so young.

He thought about God a great deal, but he did not want to act on his thoughts for reasons he could not much understand.  There was a lot about life and God the young boy simply did not understand.  He wanted to know God as he knew others understood Him.  Over time, David began to realize he might be afraid to explore deeply the mysteries of faith and a relationship with God.  He was just beginning to explore fear and the torment it brings.

He could not get the face of the teller from his mind no matter how much he tried.  She was young, about his age, and she was so helpless and frightened.  For David, this was a chance to look back and relive, in segments just minutes in length, the boy he once knew and the callousness he adopted to escape his pain.  It was becoming clear to him that there would not be an easy way to escape the past.  The pained soul was beginning to realize confronting his fragile childhood squarely was now a requirement.  He also knew he had to sort his past with great care so his natural compassion was not crowded by the chaos that threatened it profoundly.   And, it was that same chaos that threatened his chance to live the life that deep within he wanted so badly.

He was not at all concerned with the two-year sentence imposed or the mandatory therapy he actually asked for and still wanted.  He served each day with courage and the hope that it would launch his chance to reform his ways and discover the man he felt he might one day become.  The time flew by and so too had his therapy where progress was made.  David knew there were unfinished pieces of treatment that would need to be explored and embraced.  Coldness engulfed his heart despite the many forward steps that were taken courageously.  His heart sought the warm glow he remembered when he sat with his mother and spoke to her about dreams for a better life.  Those discussions were a source of comfort, and they fed his spirit in ways he now wanted to feel again.

He asked over and over to meet the young teller so he could offer his apology, but he was allowed only to write a note, which he was told the court would deliver.  Any note felt cold, like his heart, and he wrote several, then he tore each up into tiny pieces, never wanting them sent but always hoping to write another for some odd reason.  Finally, he sent one of the notes, but it felt inadequate.  David longed to meet her.  If he could just look into her eyes and tell her just how much he wished he could take back what pain he inflicted, he believed good would result.  He so regretted the pain he forced on the stranger who he could not believe had crossed his life and intersected it with a fury that was difficult to imagine.  He did not hear from her, and he never could rid her torment filled face from his mind.  The young teller’s eyes bore the same terror he saw in his mother’s eyes years before.  He wondered if he turned the teller’s heart cold like his.

He prayed as best he could for his victim to overcome the pain he caused.  He prayed with thoughts, inward dedications with good intentions, that he hoped would be transported to his intended recipients.  David never spoke his prayers aloud or prayed ceremonially.  With thoughts flowing to his God, that he hoped were delivered safely, he just went about his business.  He even prayed for the soul of his father, though he could not forgive what he did to his mother. 

Just two days from his release David was told he had a visitor.  He welcomed his attorney and they planned for his release and especially for the first week of his freedom.  Then the attorney took his client to the visitor window where across the glass partition she stood.  David picked up the corresponding receiver so he could tell her directly how sorry he was for what he had done to her.  Together they wept knowing there was something profound and powerful in the moment.  She placed the receiver down before turning to exit.  David reflected on her eyes as he just saw them, filled with understanding and void of terror.  It was that image he knew would now sustain him and enable him to live fully once more.  He looked up toward the ceiling as he delivered a thought that was meant for God only, not one he needed delivered to a third party.

Rachel Edelman was a skilled probation officer who recognized David was far from the most at risk of her former inmates.  She secured a small three-room apartment above the Bakery on Fifth Street which she felt could suffice for David.  Across the makeshift kitchen, David could see the el train that rattled the windows throughout the day and also the night, when he tried to retreat from the hectic pace of the city to a world of needed peace and rest. 

Each day he headed to the many businesses about the metropolitan area in the hopes of finding employment.  Rachel was doing her best as well, because she knew more so than David that his success depended upon employment, a change of his patterns, and his own desire to do good things.  David felt the need to do something quickly.  There were days when he called on twenty potential employers, and some job opportunities seemed promising, but eventually they all ended in rejection.  His criminal record was a hindrance, and the very basic job skills he held were inadequate, simply insufficient.  One employer told him he was destined for failure just like his fellow former inmates, then he suggested David face this cold reality.  The candid perspective was unwelcomed, but David knew it was meant to either defeat him or serve to motivate him to do more.  If only someone would believe in him and help lift him from the depths of his dire circumstances, he thought.  He needed God or the spirit of his mother to lift him through his struggle and toward a chance to be better as a person.

David felt an intense gloom that was elevated by dreary weather that hung over the city.  He returned to his apartment only to see the For Sale sign on the bakery window.  He inquired, and Martha informed him that she planned to sell the failing bakery and the apartment that David now called home.  It all seemed so cruel and David felt, for the first time since his release, that prison made sense, and there he could better survive a life clearly intended to be one of sorrow and rejection.  If this was his lot in life, he might do well to accept it just as the man told him.  He remembered watching the boxing match the week before and seeing the fighter stagger from a barrage of punches as he fought to remain upright.  He felt for the desperate boxer, and David called out for him to just lie down for he had earned relief from the punishment he was enduring.  With each fresh punch, David cried out louder, as if his calls would end the suffering of the man in the ring who was under such heavy assault.  He saw the struggle of the boxer’s now uncoordinated muscles, trying fruitlessly to keep him from danger in the small ring.  David understood staggering and wanting to remain upright, but he was seemingly unable to do so with any consistency.  This world of staggering and flailing was one he knew too well, in fact.

He went to bed in the early evening tending neither to his hunger or his deflated spirits.  He just wanted some relief that sleep promised to offer, at least for now.  When he awoke, just ahead of the anticipated el train’s arrival, he sat up alert to his world, and the troubled young man took inventory with renewed interest.  He stared at the crucifix that his mother left to him.   David hung the crucifix above his mattress that was placed in the corner of the room, near a small rickety chair he bought for three dollars at the charity store.  His mother told her little boy the story of the Passion and the Crucifixion when David was a small child, and she repeated the story in their darkest times.  David felt qualified so he recited the words of his mother as best he could in the hopes that they could lift him and enable his fragile spirit to find a way from the depression surrounding him, much the way they had in the past.  His words, that mirrored those his mother left to him, offered some sense there was hope.  Hope was all he had then and what he was left with in his present circumstances, less he simply give up and let the darkness swallow him.

With an alert but wounded spirit, he walked down the fire exit and retrieved the stale bread and other discarded food from the bakery dumpster.  He then returned to his apartment to sort through the goods and put together a meal to satisfy his hungry belly and nourish his still growing mind. 

He knocked on Martha Pence’s door certain she had returned from her Sunday service that he knew was an early ritual for her.  Martha was a heavy woman who labored to walk, and she answered the door short of breath which she disguised as best she could.  Her