Facing Redemption

by Kimberly McKay

  Anne laughed, “How big?”

  Chastity stood up and lightly punched Anne in the arm. “Whatever!”

  “I’m just saying … poor guy. He must be in love to put up with holding out this long.”

  “It was so sweet to have him hold me through the whole night after I divulged so much to him.”

  “He’s your lobster sweetie,” Anne said paraphrasing one of their favorite episodes of Friends.

  “I know.” She smiled. “He is. Plus any man that will willingly go to church with you because he’s truly interested - is a keeper.”

  “Tell me about it,” Anne mumbled before changing the subject to keep her own mind from stewing over that issue. “So you two are obviously taking it to the next level. What about your art classes in Venice – did they help you take it to the next level too?”

  “Oh Anne,” Chastity almost sang. “I learned so much. We painted in so many different locations – The Rialto Bridge, the Island of Merino, Doge’s Palace. I saw a part of the world that I never imagined. Parts of it seem so surreal. In some ways the only way I know it was truly that beautiful is by seeing what I painted. While I was there I bought a camera too … to help remember for future work.”

  “I know Julia is chomping at the bit to display it at your exhibit in her gallery next month.”

  “I wish I’d done more that was exhibit worthy.”

  “I’ve seen some of what you did and it is great work Chaz. Really.”

  Chastity exhaled before saying. “Since I let my curiosity got the best of me with John’s letter, most of my work isn’t up to any standard of mine. I’ve got a few good pieces but the rest just aren’t good enough.” Chastity shook her head as she taped up her last box.

  “I just had to open it. Anne, why did I let that letter get the best of me? And now … somehow now I’m still curious about it all…and angry! Angry at myself for opening it and still thinking about it! After Timothy left, I crumpled it up and threw it away, but then it was still sitting in my trash can. It was as if John was in the room with me and it didn’t do anything but drive me even crazier.”

  “So what did you do? Burn it? I would have.”

  “No, I picked back up, smoothed it out, folded it, and mailed it right back to Uncle Jesse.”

  “Seems like an awful amount of trouble when a match would have done the trick.”

  “I know. I know. I just wanted Jesse to have it. It is from his brother after all. I stuck my own note in asking him not to send the rest on to me. I appreciated him sending me the first. After all they’re written to me, but Jesse gave me the choice to read it and accept the others or … not.”

  “How many others?”

  “I don’t know. Jesse sent me a package right before I left for Venice, with a letter explaining he didn’t feel right holding anything back from me. Since he’d been receiving letters for me at his address, he wanted me to have the option to read them.

  He left it up to me to ask for any more if I wanted them, and at this point I don’t.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Um,” she sighed. “Hello I’m your father. I screwed up but am not a monster kind of letter so please forgive me. It’s my dad’s fault I have no feelings but my mom’s fault for dying at birth so I could really be screwed up.”

  “Excuses for why he attacked your mom then?”

  “I don’t know. I know I’m making him sound pretty pathetic in the letter,” Chastity shook her head in anger, “but he is pathetic! But the letter … he was adamant that he wasn’t giving excuses but wanted to explain why he was the way he was…as in the past. He claims he’s changed and sorry. I don’t know.” Chastity stacked another box in the corner of her soon to be empty kitchen. “Now all I can think of is that he’s a person, not an animal … and I’m angry. I liked it much better when I didn’t have to think about him at all. When he was dead, or as far as I knew growing up, I idolized this image of him and yearned for a loving father. Now that I know the truth of not only his existence, but that he raped my mom…that image of what I had of him growing up is shattered. I can’t open my heart to someone who is such a monster.”

  “Not that I think he’s a nice guy Chaz, because what kind of man would hurt a woman? Not one that has a moral bone in his body … but what if he has changed?”

  Chastity shot Anne one of her famous looks that could freeze water in a sauna.

  Anne put her hand up in defense. “I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. What if he’s changed by some miracle and is truly sorry? You have the chance to meet your father, real, imagined, or not. You have the opportunity to forge a connection, even if it’s a small one. How many people would kill for that?”

  “How would I know if that’s a real viability or not?”

  Anne looked at her and said, “I think you know the answer to that already … the rest of the letters.”

  “Shut up and keep packing Anne.”

  Chastity was instantly sorry for talking back to her friend, but Anne knew the voice of reason wouldn’t be welcomed with open arms. And she knew Chastity didn’t mean to be cruel. They both understood Chastity had a lot on her mind and was just venting.

  Anne winked at Chastity and saluted. “Yes ma’am!”

  Chastity laughed and threw a roll of packing tape at her.

  “Tell me again why you’re the one moving?” Anne asked and continued before Chastity could answer.

  “Haven’t you done enough of this in your life?”

  “He and I both have, Anne,” Chastity stressed, knowing how hard this must be for her friend, from whom she had been inseparable since college. “But he’s sacrificed a lot to be with me…coming to Oklahoma City, flying to Venice. He’s already got a practice established, and I don’t have anything really holding me here.” Chastity grimaced before saying, “You know I love you though right?”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m just going to miss ya sista-friend,” Anne conceded.

  “You can always visit … its not that far away.”

  “Do you know how long it takes to travel from one end of California to the other?”

  “It’s not from one end to the other.”

  “It might as well be the other end of the earth! Do you not see how different southern and northern California are?”

  “I know,” Chastity sighed. “It’s a big move and commitment, but completely worth it.” Chastity stopped wrapping and reached for Anne’s arm. “When you find who you know in the pit of your stomach is your soul mate, you move to the ends of earth to be with them.”

  Anne nodded in understanding as she finished packing up her best friend’s belongings. She wished she truly understood it though. Nodding in agreement was the only thing she could offer.

  She and Brent were far from soul mates she was beginning to discover. She thought they were at one point. They used to share everything and understand everything about one another, but lately her relationship with Brent had cooled. Part of her wondered if there was someone else, but she just chalked it up to their busy schedules.

  After both girls finished boxing up the kitchen and bathroom, Anne left with the promise of returning the next day. The rest of their conversation wasn’t the smoothest, but as a military brat it was hard for her to say good-bye. And with her own family history, it was torture to have someone you love leave you behind. She’d had enough of that to last three lifetimes. Heartache was her middle name, not that she’d shared any of it with her best friend.

  “Some best friend I am,” she murmured getting in her car.

  Chastity’s family history, although completely twisted was an open book. She’d never held anything back from Anne, because she trusted Anne in every way. Anne had never shared her family’s story with Chastity … or anyone for that matter.

  It’s not that she didn’t trust Chastity, because she was close enough to her to call her sister, but the scars left inside from her past didn’t allow anyone in that deep. And to start delving down too far i
nto her past, was like opening a deep chasm…one that held too much pain, which could resurface in seconds.

  If she let it, she felt its grasp reaching up and drowning her. Anne took a deep breath, turned up the radio, and started to sing at the top of her lungs. She lost herself in the music to keep her heartache from taking her over.

  Chapter 10

  She was born Annabel Christiana LaSal, the daughter of Francis and Elizabeth LaSal. When she was 12, she shortened it to Anne. It suited her better, as she never felt like an Annabel.

  Anne considered herself one of the lucky ones growing up. Her parents were madly in love with each other and their children. Anne even liked her kid sister, Grace. Grace was five years her junior and Anne got to be her second mom in many ways. She didn’t mind her kid sister always hanging around, like all her friends did. They were constantly complaining about their younger siblings.

  Maybe it was because Anne’s family moved every couple years, or maybe it was because they were so close, but having her sister with her all the time became her comfort zone.

  Growing up in a military family, her father’s job showed them the world. There were as many hellos as there were goodbyes, and she could count her friends in every region of the world. She enjoyed the constant change in cultures and people, and the fluidity of life. Anne reveled in change and the reinvention of self. The only constant in her life was her family and the love they held for one another.

  The oldest daughter of a military officer and his elegant wife - the older sister of a shy, but quirky younger sister; these were her roots, her core, and what gave her peace each night.

  All that changed when she was sixteen. The calm peace in life was quickly replaced with chaos. The family she clung to for security shattered in one heartbeat. In one instant, she was talking with her mom on the phone, and in the next all she heard were screams.

  Anne’s parents, Elizabeth and Francis, faithfully went on dinner dates every Friday. Each Friday, they relied on Anne to baby-sit little Grace, which she happily obliged as that’s what family did … they took care of one another.

  That night, their evening ran a little longer than planned. Elizabeth rarely used her bag mobile phone, but she since she wouldn’t be home in time to put her youngest to bed she needed to reach out.

  “Is Grace in bed already?”

  “Yes mom. She tried to wait up, but it got too late.” Anne replied with a yawn.

  Elizabeth sighed in regret. “I missed singing her lullaby to her.”

  “She’ll get over it mom. She’s seven now … not a little baby.”

  Elizabeth chuckled. “I still think of you as my little baby Annabel.”

  “Mom,” Anne groaned.

  Elizabeth laughed at her oldest daughter’s response.

  As long as Anne lived she’d never get tired of hearing her mother’s melodic laughter. It was mesmerizing, but not just to her. Her mother hypnotized most around her with her beauty and serene spirit. Anne felt like her mother was descended from some sort of royalty, and secretly wished to find their family tree to prove her suspicions.

  Anne heard her father mumble something in the background, and could only assume it was meant for her.

  “Yes, dear I’ll tell her,” her mother replied. “Your father wants you to know he loves you.”

  Anne smiled in response. “I love him too mom. And you too.”

  Elizabeth gave her standard reply, “Me too – oodles.”

  In the seconds before parting, Anne’s heard the sound of crushed metal and crashing glass. But this was nothing compared to the sound of her mother’s screams that came through the phone and blared in her ears. In seconds her world came tumbling down around her.

  “Mom!” Anne yelled. “Mom!”

  Her heart dropped at the sound of nothing in response. The phone was dead silent. And at the age of sixteen, Anne knew she had the task of stepping into her mother’s shoes, and going from Grace’s second mom to her only one.

  At the age of sixteen, she lost her family. She lost her heart. She lost her world. Little did she know she and her baby sister were about to be forced to step into another one - one of control and delusions – far from where they came.

  Chapter 11

  Jesse held tightly to the letter that Chastity sent from Venice. He’d read and re-read it at least fifteen or sixteen times. It preoccupied his mind these days, as it changed everything he’d thought true about his and his brother’s relationship.

  Jesse had resigned himself to hating his brother for life - for not only their troubled family history, but because of his brother’s horrendous act toward Kylie. Now, after reading this letter, Jesse was completely torn.

  Jesse and John Mikale, just five years apart, were rivals growing up. The fact that his mother died giving birth to John, was probably a reason to resent his younger brother from the start, but Jesse would like to think he didn’t hold that against him. He did however resent the fact that his brother always acted out or screwed up, to which his father would always brush his behavior under the rug.

  Jackson Mikale, who was now diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and in a nursing home, had always been a tough but loving father to Jesse. But the morning he came home from the hospital with his baby brother, without his mother, Jesse knew something was terribly wrong. His dad’s eyes were cold and held no emotion. His face was blank and he kept to himself for weeks.

  Thankfully their housekeeper, Ms. Adams, who had no family of her own, stepped in as full time nanny to take care of the boys. From that point on, Jackson dove into his career, leaving the boys with no one. The only time he spent with his sons was at the dinner table. He would ask Ms. Adams how his boys were doing. Once Jackson felt adequately answered, he’d eat his food and proceed back to his study, until the boys were in bed asleep.

  Life became regulated and full of many rules. The Mikale children had a rigorous schedule to attend to which included their studies or playtime for John. Ms. Adams worked very hard to keep them busy, as there would be hell to pay from the boy’s father, if they interrupted him for any reason. He was hardest on Jesse, as he was the oldest.

  Jesse remembered vividly each Christmas morning, waking up not for the thrill of seeing what Santa brought him, but waking up with the hopes that Christmas would bring a miracle … a little warmth from his father. He hoped God would strike Jackson with compassion for his family, but sadly God never answered his prayers.

  Gifts were given in an organized fashion, and excitement of any kind was discouraged. One year, Jesse received a set of luggage from his father. He couldn’t have been more thrilled. To him, it was a grown up gift.

  Maybe now he’ll take me aside and spend time with me.

  He hastily opened the latch, smelled the interior and felt the smooth fabric inside. He played with the dual locks; to see how quickly they clicked. Unfortunately one lock jammed and he couldn’t open the suitcase.

  “Jesse, I told you not to mess with that without my guidance,” Jackson hollered at his eldest son. “Now I have to return them, and get my money back.”

  Jackson, fuming, left the room and didn’t come back. Jesse, too old to cry, had to focus on holding his tears back. He would not cry! His father wasn’t worth it. He knew his father was trying to make him feel guilty for breaking the lock, but Jesse wouldn’t let it get to him … not on Christmas day. Jesse blinked back tears and pushed the luggage to the side.

  Ms. Adams sat in shock as her employer walked out of the room. After all these years, you’d think nothing would surprise her about Mr. Mikale, but this took the cake. Yelling at a child for being excited over his first real grown up gift was just selfish and cruel, and trying to make him feel guilty for the return process? Angela Adams shook her head. She knew Mr. Mikale had an assistant for such matters.

  Ms. Adams quickly pushed another present to Jesse, in hopes to distract him with something pleasant.

  “Here … it’s not much, but it’s from me.”

  She
hoped to put a smile on his face, but when she looked at him all she saw was rage. He was staring at John, watching as his younger brother take down the stockings from the fireplace.

  “No Johnny! Not that one! That’s mom’s!” Jesse yelled.

  “What’s going on in here?” Jackson re-entered the room, agitated at the commotion. He saw his youngest son, all of five years old, who was pulling down one of his most prized holiday decorations. It was his dearly departed Marilyn’s stocking.

  “Dad! We’re not allowed to touch that! He’s got mom’s stocking!”

  Jackson, clearly annoyed, snapped up the stocking from his younger son and turned to Jesse. “Stop yelling young man. You’ve done enough today! And Johnny?”

  “Yes sir.” John responded shyly, and shuffled away to sit next to Ms. Adams.

  Jackson loomed over the boy and frowned down at him. “You shouldn’t do that again boy.” Jackson took the stocking with him, and retired to his room.

  Little John started crying because he knew his father was disappointed. Jesse threw one of his new toys at his younger brother, ran upstairs to his room, and slammed the door.

  Jesse now, almost fifty years old, couldn’t stand rehashing his childhood memories, and now with John’s letter in hand it had done nothing but drag them all up again … except this time, with a fresh perspective.

  It was this perspective that gave him pause, and made him consider his part in not only his past but also his little brother’s upbringing. Am I angry with him for what kind of person he grew into? Or was I always angry because I blamed him for mom’s death? Am I to blame for how he turned out?

  Jesse shook his head and tried to free his mind from the guilt plaguing him at the moment, but the little voice asking questions now started with accusations.

  You should have given John more time…in essence you deserted him too. Maybe if you’d been the big brother you should have, he wouldn’t have turned out so badly.