Leashed to Faith Read online

  Leashed to Faith

  by

  Vicky Kaseorg

  Copyright 2019 Vicky Kaseorg

  All rights reserved to author.

  ISBN: 9781094864648

  Cover Design: Asherel Herman, Asherel.com

  This is a work of fiction. As with most fictional work, some of the characters and situations are developed from a compilation of people the author has encountered. No character or event is based on a single factual person or event. No character is intended to represent a specific person, living or dead…other than Jesus.

  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

  1 Corinthians 13:12

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Author’s Note

  To Connect with Vicky Kaseorg

  Other Books by Vicky Kaseorg

  Chapter One

  Idon’t know what drew me there on my coveted morning to sleep in. Maybe it was the loud bird right outside my window who woke me a good two hours before my allotted time with Mr. Sandman was over. Maybe it was my dog who said, “Wooooaaaaayg upupupup….” My eccentric friend Talia would say it was the Holy Spirit, but that was a bridge too far for me.

  Whatever it was, I was wide awake with the sun just barely stretching tentative fingers above the horizon. Bo, my dog who was very close to mastering the English language, was excited. She wagged her tail and perked her pointy ears even perkier than usual, with expectation, like something BIG was imminent, worth opening my sleep-deprived eyes.

  I yawned, and groaned as Bo pounced on my stomach. Fortunately she was not a large dog but thirty pounds landing squarely on one’s newly awakening gut is never desirable. She repeated her command to get out of bed.

  I flipped the covers back, sending her tumbling off of me, then staggered to the bathroom. She waited outside the door. I could tell because every so often she would say, “Hunnnnngrrrrrrrreeeeee.”

  She pranced about my ankles as I emerged and then sat in front of me, wagging her tail as I blearily pulled on my jeans and sweatshirt. There was no doubt that dog had something in mind and expected me to be a part of it.

  With the help of my raise at the veterinarian office and an unexpected anonymous check that kept showing up in my mailbox, I had moved to a small rental home. The joy of that house, not much bigger than my apartment had been, was it had a backyard. The yard was small as well, but fenced, so I could just open the back door to let Bo out to do her business.

  I had no certainty of who my benefactor was, but I did have a guess. A few months ago, I had the most despicable surprise of my life. I discovered who my father was. You don’t need to hear all the details of a past I would definitely prefer not to revisit, but here are the highlights so you will better understand my story.

  I was mostly raised by the state after my mother died of cancer and my uncle who received custody decided to do unspeakable things to me.

  I never knew my dad, but from the little mom revealed, I thought he was a drug addict who ran off by the time I was two.

  NOT the best background from which a model human being would emerge. True to form, a model human being did not emerge. I bounced from one terrible man to the next, and a few abortions later, ended up working at an abortion center. I thought I was helping women, among other self-deceptions.

  I fled that job after three years of horror when the horror became too terrible to repress anymore.

  Bo, my talking dog, found me and probably is the reason I am alive today.

  Talia, a crazy lady who stands on abortion center sidewalks to help women choose life, helped me find my new job with the vet office, and became my friend.

  Bo led me to Timothy, who I had been dating for months now, the first nice man I had ever known.

  That catches you up to the worst moment of my life. My old boss, the abortionist Dr. Thanatos, ended up crashing his car right in front of the vet office where I work. The air bag did what I would have loved to do: bashed him in the head, and he lost his memory as a result. I was key to helping him remember he was the devil incarnate, upon which I will not elaborate or go into all the gory details. In the end, he also remembered he was my father.

  I know. What would you do with that kind of traumatic revelation? It gets worse. He also revealed that my mother, the saintly woman who tried (unsuccessfully but persistently) to raise me to love God, had wanted to abort me! It was Daddy Death who talked her out of it, with the promise he would stay out of our lives.

  And yes, I agree. There is NOT enough money in the world for the therapy to recover from all that.

  He retired from his work as an abortionist after he recovered from his injuries in the accident. I have no idea what happened to him after that. I made it clear that he was not going to be receiving invitations to my wedding or Sunday dinners. Not that there were any weddings or Sunday dinners.

  However, when a lawyer informed me I would be receiving a monthly check from an anonymous source, I suspected Dr. Thanatos was the

  donor. It was blood money, born by his guilt over what he had done all those years probably, but since I didn’t know for sure who was sending me the checks, I took them. Maybe they were from God. Talia always told me God worked in mysterious ways.

  So all that is a long introduction to the strange impulse to join Talia on the sidewalk in front of the Mirror Lake Women’s Center to watch her try to convince women that aborting their children might not be a great idea. She had been bugging me for months, telling me my “testimony” could change women’s hearts.

  Yeah, right. Like I was some model to follow. If it hadn’t been for my talking dog, I probably would have committed suicide. I could not guarantee those tormented, deceived women that I could find them a talking dog. I suspect there are not many of them on the planet.

  Bo was very clear. “Goooo-wufffff-ooooo.” She, unlike me, was eager to join Talia on this largely unfruitful mission. Now you are up to speed, and that is the last time I intend to relive a past I am trying to desperately forget.

  Talia was, as usual, underdressed for the chilly morning. No hat. No gloves. Thin coat. Grey, frizzy hair pulled back in an unflattering ponytail. She glanced up as Bo and I approached, and a wide smile just about cracked her face in half.

  “What a lovely surprise to see you here!”she said.

  “Bo insisted.”

  “Well thank you, Bo. I am sure God can use you.”

  “Woooor wehhhhhgrrrrrmmm.”

  Yes, you heard that right. I get tired of pointing out the obvious. My dog talks. She struggles with certain consonants. I assume a dog’s vocal apparatus doesn’t allow for all human phonemes. However, I have learned to decipher almost everything she says, having lived with her for several months now. The vet I work for, Dr. Harried, told me Bo is a Carolina Dog. It is a rare breed, considered among the oldest breeds in the world, that still lives in feral packs in the Southeast swamplands. They have a lot of unusual habits. While speaking English is not usually listed as one of their unique traits, it makes sense. The breed has been around a long time, so they have had ample opportunity to learn all kinds of tricks.

  Talia adopted two of Bo’
s pups, Flim and Flam, but neither of them appear (yet) to have inherited the language gene. She smiled at Bo.

  I had joined Talia one other time, and we had talked to a woman who ultimately chose life for her baby. It was a thrill for me, but I knew that most of the people streaming into the abortion center ignored Talia, or flipped her the one finger salute, or swerved their cars to scare her or outright flatten her. It was not a job I envied, or wanted. Still, for some strange reason, here I was, standing beside her.

  She stuffed her hands in her pockets. “I know it is not close to as cold as it will get this winter,” she said, “But I feel chilled.”

  “Maybe you need a warmer coat,” I suggested.

  “Maybe.”

  We fell into silence as a car slowed down, approaching the center. Talia held one red hand up, waving, and showed the driver the cover of her pamphlet, which displayed a cute little baby picture.

  To my shock, the car stopped, and the driver rolled down her window. I stepped back. Talia stepped forward.

  “Are you on the way to the Woman’s Center?”she asked.

  “Yes,” said the young lady.

  “May I give you this?” Talia held out the pamphlet.

  “What is it?”

  “It is information about your baby. For example, did you know your baby’s heart is beating if you missed your period?”

  The woman snorted with disgust, and the car tires squealed as she pounded the gas pedal.

  I suspect that was the driver’s way of saying she was not interested.

  I would love to report that the rest of the morning was different from that initial encounter. However, it was not. I tried to make my getaway after about an hour of similar responses, but Bo would not budge. Now strange as you may find this, I had learned that if Bo was determined to be someplace, there was a reason. So I stood quietly beside Talia, wondering how she could do this day after day. I, for sure, would develop an inferiority complex. The good news is the day slowly warmed as the sun made its way above the treetops lining the sidewalk. Once we were out of the shadows, Talia stopped shivering.

  A sleek BMW roared around the bend in the road in front of us and as it zoomed by us, the driver yelled some obscenities.

  “That’s the abortionist,” Talia explained. “Now the killing begins.”

  My father, the one I prefer to never mention again, was the abortionist until his car accident. As his memories surged back after a couple of weeks of complete amnesia, he was overcome by the evil of what he had done, resulting in his decision to retire. I had hoped maybe no one would step in to take his place, but I guess that was a foolish hope.

  Talia pulled a new pamphlet out of her purse. This one had a picture of a sad woman on the front cover.

  “This is what we give post-abortive women,” she said.

  She handed it to me. I flipped through the pages. There were several Bible verses scattered in the prose, as well as a list of post-abortive recovery groups.

  I was just about to ask her if anyone ever stopped after getting an abortion, when a car coming out of the clinic slowed as it neared us and pulled up beside Talia. The driver was crying. An empty child seat was strapped in the back seat of the car.

  She rolled down her window.

  “Did you change your mind?” Talia asked.

  I held my breath, hopeful. Bo stood up, her normally erect tail curled over her rump now drooping.

  The woman shook her head no.

  “Did you take the pill?” Talia asked.

  She nodded, the tears now streaming down her cheeks. “I had no choice. My baby is not even a year old. My mother is raising him. I am already struggling to pay my bills. The baby daddy told me he would not help.”

  “You didn’t want to abort?”

  “I didn’t want to…I had no choice.”

  “Honey,” Talia said softly, “We always have a choice to follow what we know is right. Did you know you can reverse the effects of the first pill if you don’t take the second one?”

  “No…but even if I could, I still have bills I can barely pay now.”

  “Does that change the value of that baby in your womb?”

  Now I am anti-abortion, having seen all I saw as an abortion clinic worker, but this just seemed cruel. This woman was obviously grieving. Talia was the nicest person I knew, yet here was someone who had already had the abortion, and she was rubbing salt in the obvious wound. I didn’t get it.

  “No, I guess it doesn’t,” the woman answered. “But who is going to pay the bills to care for the one I already have?”

  “There are people who can help you,” Talia said, “But forgive me, that is not the question that is most important when a human life is at stake. Is that human being of less value based on your situation? When is it ok to take an innocent baby’s life?”

  Had it been me, I am pretty sure I would have peeled away at that moment. I was surprised the woman remained silent, tears flowing more rapidly now, taking in what Talia was saying.

  Talia spoke again. “We can help you, but first, you can try to save your baby.”

  “How? I took the pill.”

  “Don’t take the second one. I can call a nurse right now who does abortion pill reversal procedure. It is effective about 65% of the time, but most effective the sooner you start it.”

  “But isn’t the baby already hurt? Even if it could survive, won’t it be born with problems?”

  “No…the research has shown that the babies who undergo the procedure do not have any more issues than any full term baby. See the way the abortion pill works is it cuts off the hormone that is necessary to sustain a normal pregnancy. That hormone is progesterone. The reversal procedure is simple. It floods your system with progesterone to counteract the pill. Are you willing to try? And then we can talk about our resources and network of people willing to help you.”

  “Wooo woooooo!” Bo cheered.

  To my shock, the woman nodded. Talia whipped out her phone. She quickly explained the story to someone named Wanda. Then she pulled out a notepad, and scribbled instructions Wanda must have been giving. She wedged the phone between her shoulder and ear.

  “What’s your name?”she asked.

  “Lakisha.”

  Talia relayed the name to Wanda, and verified with Lakisha that she would go immediately to the Pregnancy Resource Center that could complete the reversal procedure. She hung up.

  She added her own name and phone number to the instructions and address she had scribbled on the notepad.

  “Call me after you see Wanda. We will talk about your situation and how we can help.”

  Lakisha took the paper. “Thank you. Thank you for being here. I should never have done it. I knew as soon as I took it I should not have done it. I would not have stopped even now, but honestly, I love dogs…the way that dog looked at me…I don’t know.”

  She drove away and Talia smiled at me. “Now that’s a first. Stopping for a dog. Maybe I need to be bringing my pups out here.”

  “I was told when I worked at the clinic that reversing the abortion pill was fake. It could not be done.”

  “That is a lie,” Talia said. “I have seen the babies born after abortion pill reversal.”

  “Why would they lie about it in the clinic?” I asked. “They already got paid for the abortion. It’s not like the woman will get her money back if the abortion is reversed.”

  Talia shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t understand that sort of mind-set at all.”

  “Do you think she will really go to the Pregnancy Resource Center?”

  “Some do…and sadly some don’t. It is a good sign that she stopped, took my literature, and was crying. She was not happy over the abortion. But I won’t downplay how strong the desire is to get out of a tough situation by killing the baby. Many women believe abortion will end the struggles. Of course, I know it will only increase them. They are often not prepared for what the abortion does to a woman’s psyche.”

  Bo now
stood, wagging her tail. She tugged on the leash, as though directing me that our time there was over.

  “I guess Bo is ready to leave,” I said, laughing.

  “She did a good work here today,” Talia said. “Thank you both of you for coming.

  As I began to move away, I paused. “Talia, will you let us know if Lakisha calls you?”

  “I will.”

  With that, we moved on. I let Bo lead me, since we had a whole lazy open day before us. I was in no hurry to get anywhere. We used to do Saturday morning obedience classes at the Dog Barn, but those had ended. We had been trained NOT to let the dog lead us. We were to be the ones walking the dog, not vice versa. However, Bo was generally a model dog, very compliant. She was the star of the class.

  The class failure was Bo’s favorite friend, Dumbo. Dumbo was a huge black doofus of a dog with more enthusiasm than brains. He was also owned by Timothy…my boyfriend. Timothy was really embarrassed by how intractable Dumbo was, but decided that as the stupid dog aged, maybe he would mellow.