Spirit Invictus Complete Series

by Mark Tiro

  “While he was driving Maya? Well, I’ve heard of walking meditation. But driving meditation? That’s ridiculous.”

  “You know what he told me? It was about God or Love, maybe, or both—I don’t know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “‘There’s no place where it stopped and I began.’ That’s what he told me.”

  “What did he mean? What was ‘it’?”

  “Love, or God—with a capital ‘L’. He didn’t seem to much differentiate. ‘There was no me anymore,’ he told me, ‘but I still was. I was part of the whole and I was the entire whole, both at the same time. I just wasn’t me. I had put down that burden, of being me.’”

  “So, one hand clapping, huh?” Grace asked.

  “Stop it,” Maya shot back. “It’s all just gibberish. At least until I can have a drink.”

  “I think I might have some ideas,” Grace told her in a calming voice, before asking, “So that’s it Maya? Did he tell you if was he afraid or anything? Did you ask him what it was like?”

  “Like pure love. Like he was home. His exact words… well, more or less. Do you see why I need a drink? Because the truth is—I’m relatively sure he’s not actually crazy. He was completely lucid—and very gentle, actually. Kind. Or maybe it’s me who’s become crazy now, listening to it all. Thing is Grace—I’ve never experienced anything even close to what he’s talking about.”

  “Yup. Sounds like one hand clapping. Good ears, Maya.”

  “Stop it. It was uncomfortable. I mean—not in a creepy way at all. He was so… gentle, so… loving—like how you don’t want to stare straight into the sun, because it’s too bright. It was too much love. Like it was just extending out, into me. You know—too much darkness? Well, that’s something I can deal with. God knows, it’s probably why I picked this job. Or why it picked me. But too much love? Sorry. I’m totally out of my element on that one.”

  “Grace?” the twenty-something host called out, searching the throng of people for the two women. While Maya could turn heads sometimes, when she put her mind to it, Grace looked more like a Korean supermodel than a Public Defender. Finally finding Grace and Maya towards the back of the crowd, the young host walked over to where they were standing with two menus tucked neatly under his arm. He looked up at Grace, who was at least half a head taller than him, and blushed. “Right this way,” he stuttered, as he turned and led them to the far end of the ramen bar. He retrieved a pitcher and poured two glasses of water while waiting for their server to appear.

  “I think we’re going to need something stronger than this,” Maya told him, holding her water glass. “Can you get us a large bottle of house sake?” Maya asked.

  “Of course,” he muttered. “Hot or cold?”

  “Depends. Do you happen to be Jewish?”

  “Maya!” Grace blurted out, cutting her off. Then she turned—apologetically—to the host. “Cold. One bottle of cold sake, please.”

  “Make sure it’s jumbo!” Maya shouted after him, as he disappeared to put in the orders. “I’m tired of small bottles that can never satisfy—”

  “Maya!” Grace blurted out, cutting her off. But this time, they both laughed. “I think you’re channeling Michelle tonight.”

  “I think I am. Yes.”

  As they waited for the drinks to come, Grace asked, “So did you ask him if God said anything to him?”

  “Yes, and no. He called it ‘a symphony of stillness’—like the silence itself is singing. Perfectly still, but at the same time, pulsating with love. ‘Love loved’ I think were his words.”

  “‘Love loved’?” Grace repeated. “Maybe that’s the real version of one hand clapping? ‘Love loved.’ I like that.”

  Just then, the server got over to their table. “Here you go,” she said, laying out the drinks in front of them. She then took their ramen orders before dashing off again just as quickly as she had appeared.

  “Well, at least it’s pretty obvious why he crashed,” Grace told Maya. “Let me ask you this one last thing though. Why do you think—and put yourself in his head and just assume that it was some sort of revelation or something—why do you think a loving God would show this revelation while he’s driving down the road at 7:42 am on a Tuesday morning with his daughter strapped in the back seat?”

  “I asked him that, Grace. I did.” Maya looked up from her empty sake cup. “I asked him directly. He became really sad when I did. Not sad, more like quiet, peaceful even—like a man looks sometimes when he’s knows there’s nothing else to do. And do you know what? He looked me straight at me, with those eyes and he said, ‘Damned if I know.’”

  15

  Sundays could be good. Pilates, coffee and the paper, afternoon drinks. Or maybe not getting out of bed at all.

  Today was not one of those Sundays.

  Maya was going down to spend most of the day with her mom. Her brother Sean was in town (not Tom, fortunately, who was not in town, but who was in her mind now all too frequently).

  Sean texted her that he was giving his wife the day off: he’d be bringing Lili, his baby. Not that Maya had anything against her. Maya’s baby niece Lili was cute enough, as far as babies went. And also, Maya figured the baby would be a distraction for her mom, which, Maya grudgingly admitted to herself, would help to insulate Maya from the drama.

  Well, the baby notwithstanding, Maya thought—actually luxuriating in rolling over the word ‘notwithstanding’ in her mind—at least Sean’ll be there. Mom will pretend she can feel human emotion and gush all over the baby. At least, I won’t have to make small talk with her. Thinking this, Maya was happy. Her elation concealed an anger that she was only beginning to recognize. Still, she was happy, despite the uncomfortable simmering. And since her last visit with David, something was simmering.

  While she was driving down to visit her mom, Maya reached over and picked up her phone from where it had been charging in the cup holder. She tapped out a text to Joel: “Have you seen Nagai yet? You’ll want to hear his story!”

  A while later, Maya pulled up to the house she had grown up in. She parked behind Sean’s car, got out, and walked up to the door.

  “Let’s go to the mall today,” Maya’s mom greeted her at the door. “My doctor says I should walk, so I have to go to the mall.”

  “I’m happy to see you too mom. Hello.” Maya smiled briefly at her mom as she walked in. Why did I smile, dammit! Maya thought.

  Maya came in and went over to give her dad a hug. He was thin now, and it was difficult for him to walk. Because of this, he didn’t get out of the house much anymore. All the walking he had done until he no longer could seems, at least, to have kept him looking younger than his actual years. Her dad had stubbornly held onto the dark hair of his youth until just a few years ago when, almost overnight, white hair had pushed its way up, bypassing grey entirely. “Mom did that to him,” Sean had said at the time. “It’s just a wonder that it took her so long. If I had to live with her, I’d have been grey years ago.” In any event, Maya was happy to see that her dad still had the kind gleam in his eye that had seen her through some of her toughest times, growing up.

  As they were saying ‘hi’ she heard her mom ask, “When am I going to be a grandmother again?”

  How dare she even ask! Maya thought as she spun around to confront her mom. I’m sure as hell not having any grandkids for you! she thought, raging silently.

  As soon as Maya had turned though, she saw only her mom’s back. The question had been directed to Sean and not to her.

  Now more incensed that her mom had not asked the question of her than she had been a moment previously when she thought her mom had, Maya bristled under the pent-up weight of her own grievances and pain. And so Maya answered anyway. “How come you never ask me when I’m going to have a grandchild for you mom?”

  But her mom didn’t hear her. Her mom was prancing around the room now, holding Sean’s baby, making cooing baby sounds trying to get the baby to smile.

>   Maya looked over to Sean. “It sounds like she just escaped from the lunatic asylum.”

  Sean didn’t answer her either though. But at least, when she saw his face, she understood he had a good reason. Sean was trying to keep up with his mom, to stay within arm’s length of the baby. As he did, Sean briefly caught Maya’s eye. When he did, she saw a look of horror.

  At some point—after Sean had safely retrieved his baby from his mother’s bosom—Maya turned towards her mom.

  “Sure mom. Let’s go to the mall.”

  At least I won’t have to make small talk, Maya thought.

  “I really wish Tom could come,” her mom said, making small talk. “But he’s on another one of his missions to convert those poor people. He cares so much. If anyone can save them—”

  “Stop! Please mom, stop. I do not want to hear about Tom! The only thing ‘those people’ need to be saved from is Tom!”

  “My doctor says I should eat too,” her mom announced, completely oblivious to Maya as she walked out the door ahead. Trying to juggle his baby and the diaper bag, Sean walked behind, struggling to keep pace.

  “Really mom? Your doctor told you that you should eat? Are you sure that she didn’t tell you to stop taking food and slowly starve yourself to death?”

  At this, Sean gave Maya a sharp jab in her side. “Knock it off Maya,” he whispered. “Please just help me out here to get through this, okay?”

  “Thanks for coming along,” Maya told him. “Without you, it would be unbearable.”

  “There’s a restaurant in the food court there that I like,” her mom announced to both of them, and at the same time, to no one in particular. “With the cute little panda bears.”

  “That place?” Maya said. “Do you actually hate yourself mom? I mean, do you know what Lao Lao would have…” Maya’s grandma came to mind, and she smiled. She decided it wasn’t worth the fight with her mom and gave up. “Oh, never mind.”

  “I don’t think this mall thing is such a good idea,” Sean said, pointing to his crying baby, as he rocked her back and forth. Lili was only a month old. As far as Maya could tell, she’d been crying on and off since she was born.

  “She’s too young,” Sean told their mom. “I think it’s too soon, and, well…it’d just be a little too much to take her out around the mall. I mean, she’s so young, I don’t want her to catch a cold.”

  “Well, you know,” their mom answered without actually looking at Sean, “you can’t protect that baby forever. Besides, I think there’s a really good sale, this weekend only. I have to go.”

  “She’s only a month old though. Mom?” Sean protested. But their mom hadn’t heard. She was already out of earshot, getting into the backseat of the car.

  Thirty-five minutes later, Maya, Sean, his baby, and their mom all found themselves in the mall.

  Maya silently pondered her mom for a moment. Maya concluded, she’s not so bad actually. Except for when she talks. Or refuses to talk, but won’t tell you why.

  “Let’s go in here,” her mom said, pointing to the mattress store. This was the store where the mattresses went up and down, got harder and softer, at the touch of a button.

  “I want to try this out, okay?” her mom said. If it had been directed at Sean, or even at her, it might have been innocuous (except that her lips were moving, Maya thought). Unfortunately, it wasn’t. It was directed at the salesperson. He heard it and swooped in from behind. Before Sean or Maya could get a word out, her mom was trying out beds.

  “Guess we should have seen this one coming,” Sean told her, rolling his eyes in resignation, as he looked around for a place—not a mattress—to sit down with the baby until it was done.

  “Mom doesn’t care that we’re going to have to sit through the sales pitch?” Maya said, as they found some chairs just outside the mattress store. They were still within hearing range, to Maya’s consternation.

  “And it’s fully adjustable,” the salesman was telling their mom. “It comes with this remote control you use to change the sleep settings.”

  “Uggghhh,” was all Maya could manage. While Sean closed his eyes and seemed to lose himself in rocking his baby, Maya felt derision towards her mom. Not one to explode, Maya dialed it down. She had a lot of experience dialing down her inner rage, and funneling it into a more socially-acceptable low simmer.

  “If your husband is snoring, and most men snore…” the salesman paused, waiting for an acknowledgment from their mom that would allow him to finish delivering his well-rehearsed sales pitch. He waited. Their mom sat, listening silently. He waited some more. No acknowledgment. At some point, when she never had picked up on his cue, the salesperson just gave up waiting and continued on awkwardly with his script.

  “And if your husband is snoring, you can just take this remote control that comes with the bed to adjust the settings, and— ”

  “—beat him over the head with it?” Maya interjected, jumping up. She couldn’t take it anymore. “If he’s snoring, you take the remote and beat him over the head with it until he stops?”

  “Ha!” Sean heard Maya and laughed.

  Their mom was now engrossed in the sales pitch and either didn’t hear—or just plain ignored—Maya’s comment.

  This enraged Maya even more. She sat down again, on the chair next to where Sean was rocking his now-sleeping baby.

  “Because that’s what she wants to do, right? Beat him over the head? Why did they get married anyway? Seriously, you know she can hear me. Such bullshit! In public, she acts all pleasant, normal. Normal! You know what she’s like at home though,” Maya told her brother.

  “I know, she’s a little quirky sometimes sis, but she’s doing her best. Dad stuck by her all this time. Cut her some slack, maybe? Anyway, those beds are supposed to be super comfortable. I have a friend whose wife just got them one. He swears by it. ‘Better than sex’, he says.”

  “Sean—”

  “What?”

  “Your friend says the bed’s better than sex?”

  “Yeah, so?” he answered.

  “Your friend’s wife—maybe she’s just not any good in bed.”

  “Come on—be nice. Please?”

  “Why?” she shot back, turning towards their mother. “Mom was never nice. She sure would sit around on the couch watching a lot of TV though. She never would move from that damn couch! Even when I needed her…” Maya’s voice trailed off. She became lost in thought an instant, as images came up in her memory. These were the images she had hoped would just disappear.

  “You know she just didn’t have it in her to get out of bed half the time,” Sean said.

  “And the other half of the time, she just spent yelling at us,” Maya finished.

  “It could have been so much worse for us growing up. Yesterday, after Lili’s asleep in her crib, one of those commercials came on TV about the kid who doesn’t have enough clean water. Fifty-four cents a day, right? So now, between my wife and me, we’re giving a buck eight a month for the kid on TV to get clean drinking water. You know Maya—it wasn’t so bad growing up. Not for you, me and Tom.”

  “Someone needs to tell that kid to go to Starbucks. Buy a coffee, and they’ll give him as much free water as he can drink.”

  “Maya, no!”

  “So mom says Tom’s on a mission to save the heathens?” she asked, gently taking Sean’s now-sleeping baby from his arms to give him a much-needed break.

  “Ever since he got out of the hospital,” Sean told her, “he’s just become super religious. Ambitious even. It’s like he’s on a mission—oh wait, I guess he actually is on a mission.”

  They both laughed.

  “Anyway,” Sean went on, “it’s like a combat sport for him—he’s so driven to build churches now and convert people. But it’s like he’s taking heads.”

  “And the doctors? They think that’s a good idea?” she asked.

  “I don’t think they get an opinion. They only get to hold him 72 hours in the hospital. Y
ou must know that from your work. They had to release him. The doctors said that it was just a break, but once they’d stabilized him—psychiatrically I mean, on the meds—they had no choice but to release him…” Sean trailed off, before adding, “…as long as he’s not a danger to himself or others.”

  Sean became silent a minute. Then he looked straight at Maya. “Sis, listen, I know with Tom and you—”

  “Come on mom, let’s go.” Maya interrupted Sean as soon as she saw her mom finishing up the demo. “Dad’s waiting for us to eat at home. Let’s get some food and go.”

  16

  As Maya was driving back to her condo, she got a text from Michelle (“Maya—dinner and drinks w/Grace at 6. Wanna come?”).

  As she got on the freeway and settled into the long, slow drive home, Maya texted back (“I wish, but can’t. Visiting family. Sorry. Have fun!”).

  By the time she got home, Maya was as mad as she usually was after these visits with her mom. But today—unlike well, always—Maya had this feeling that she just needed to go home and sit. Normally, she would run for drinks as fast as she could. But for some reason tonight, she was intent on driving home and being alone. She was starting to realize that she really needed to deal with her inner rage. She was just now starting to see that it was always there, always hovering, just below the surface.

  When she finally got home, Maya put on an old t-shirt she’d had since college, and some old sweat pants. Then she crawled into bed.

  Crawled into bed, closed her eyes, and cried.

  Maya Lee never cried. And she certainly never cried in public. But every now and then (more and more now), she found herself staying in, closing the curtains, pulling up the covers and looking inwards, towards her own mind, towards her anger. For now it was just a small opening. Here, with the door to her condo locked, Maya was now just starting to feel safe enough to look within and at least try to open the door to her mind. That was enough.

  This evening, she started looking inward. As she did, images came flooding in: her mom, her brother Tom, fights with DAs, her last boyfriend, guys at work she talked to a little too long one day… all of it. All of it.