by Sharon Hinck
If I could back out and call the police—
My arm bumped a shelf, and a few peppermint sticks slipped from an overstocked box and hit the floor with a clatter.
The boy swung around. Time fragmented in a series of freeze-frames. At the counter, the clerk covered her mouth with both hands, capturing her silent scream. The gun fired before the boy completed his pivot. Once. Twice. The blast hurt my ears. Not the light pops of television-drama gunfire.
The elderly woman lurched. Her arm flinched inward as if protecting the Twinkies in the red plastic basket. Then she fell back against the shelves. The row of magazines wavered.
Cordite—the scent that rises from the corner of the park where fireworks are set off on the Fourth of July—filled the air. More sharp cracks.
No, no, no! This isn’t real. Someone help us!
The husband collapsed downward, one hand reaching toward his wife. His cane clattered to the linoleum. She continued to fall, sliding down the row of magazines and to the floor. Issues of Redbook cascaded down around her.
The gun swung in my direction. “Look what you made me do! I’m gonna kill you!” His red-rimmed eyes didn’t seem human. He was a caricature. Wild, slavering, twitching. The face burned into my memory. Hatred, contempt, and a level of desperation I couldn’t understand. Even in my shock and terror, a tiny corner of my mind pitied him.
Then he squeezed the trigger and I closed my eyes to die.
chapter
13
“IT JAMMED. ”I TWISTED a tissue in my hands. When had tears begun to slide down my face? “The elderly couple died because of me. I should have died, too.” My breath hitched in my lungs. “I should have died instead. Not them.”
I finally dared to look up. Ashley’s mascara traced smudges down her face. Camille’s eyes were full. Henry shook his head sadly. Daniel watched me with deep brown eyes that matched his skin. He didn’t pull his gaze away. “We’re . . . glad . . . you didn’t die.”
He said the quiet words with effort, which made them an even greater gift.
My nose started to run, and I blotted it with the tissue. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall apart.”
“That’s why we’re here.” Dr. Marci passed me another tissue, then looked at the others. “Penny’s come up with a creative project.” Her gaze returned to me. “Would you share it with the group?”
Did they really want ideas from a frazzled mom with puffy eyes and a red nose?
“Let’s hear it,” Ashley demanded.
I couldn’t back away from her challenge. Briefly, I explained my Internet research, and my goal to do something kind for a new person each day, and how it forced me to make a few connections with others.
“Smart,” Henry declared, the bags under his eyes shrinking as he smiled. “Every time I try to get motivated to get a new job or meet new people, I think of a million reasons not to. But this could help me get out there.”
“I like it.” Camille crossed her hands elegantly on the table. She still wore her wedding ring, but she had held strong to her resolve not to run back to her husband this week. “At the shelter, it’s easy to get all wrapped up in my own issues. But there’re a lot of other people who could use some encouragement.”
“Let’s all do it. Okay?” Ashley tilted her chair back on two legs. “Worth a try.”
Henry shifted in his chair. “Oh, I don’t know about that—”
“Come on,” Ashley growled. “You gonna let Pollyanna here show you up?”
He adjusted his tie. “No. I’ll do it if you will.”
Whoa. I hadn’t meant to start something here. “But I didn’t . . . I mean . . .” I tried to explain that my little project wasn’t a universal cure for trauma. They ignored me and jabbered about people they planned to target during the coming week. The project had taken on a life of its own. I glanced at Dr. Marci.
“Thank you,” she mouthed over the chatter.
Great. Now I was stuck with the idea. And I had no clue how to find someone to help tomorrow.
Daniel had remained fairly quiet. “Is it . . . all right . . . if it’s a stranger?” His gentle voice startled everyone. Heads did a Wimbledon swing to Daniel and then to me.
I returned the serve with an easy lob. “Of course.”
Now I’d just need to figure out how to cross paths with strangers while staying safely on my living room couch.
Wednesday night, Bryan and I walked to the New Life Mission. I wasn’t sure what motivated me to overcome my powerful impulse to stay in the house and instead venture to their evening service. Maybe it was easier than coming up with any other diversion for Bryan’s seven-year-old restlessness. Maybe I longed for the fellowship I’d missed on Sunday. Maybe I needed to connect with some new people for my project.
Mild October air carried the scent of stale french fries from a local fast-food store and the heavy sweetness of dryer sheets as we passed the huge vents of the Laundromat. My son was delighted for any outing and buzzed around me happily. Even with that distraction, my muscles tightened as a man passed us across the street and later when a group of preteens galloped by with a basketball.
“Is the park near here?” Bryan stared after them and rubbed his hands.
“I haven’t found it yet.” I hurried toward the dented door of the mission, which was propped open.
He scowled. “You haven’t looked.”
Instead of following the course of that argument, I pressed my hand against his back and steered him inside. There was no way for me to slip in unobtrusively, since Lydia and Barney hovered near the door greeting people as they arrived.
“Penny! Good to see you again.” Lydia leaned forward and offered her hand to Bryan.
I nudged Bryan and he shook her hand. “This church smells funny.”
Barney rubbed a hand over his mouth and sent a wink my direction. “Well, lookie what the wind blew in. Glad you’re back. In for a Penny, in for a pound, eh?” Glee creased his whiskered face, then he turned to call a greeting to a passerby.
Bryan plopped onto one of the folding chairs in the back row, behind a scattering of about twenty people. I scanned the room, relieved to see old women, a few younger women with children, and only a couple of elderly men. No young men. No baseball caps. I settled into the aisle chair beside Bryan.
“You came.” Camille squeezed past us and sat beside my son. “It’s good to see you.”
Bryan quickly launched into a description of his recess soccer game that day, and Camille’s smile grew broader.
Barney walked up the aisle in his rolling gait and leafed through a tattered hymnal. Lydia followed him, stopping to pat my shoulder and smile. My face heated as I thought of how unstable I must have seemed last time I’d been here. I suddenly realized she’d never asked for explanations. She hadn’t demanded information about who I was or why I was struggling. She had simply prayed for me and helped me home. Even after I told her about the crime, she didn’t pry. It was as if she understood that each person she met would have wounds—some hidden, some on the surface—and the name of the wound wasn’t a high concern for her. During the past weeks, I’d hated bearing the label of victim, or post-traumatic-stress sufferer, or lonely Navy wife. Here I wasn’t labeled. I was simply Penny from the neighborhood.
“Let’s sing.” Barney led out in a gravelly rendition of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” that brought an unexpected clog to my throat. Wobbly, elderly voices rose in approximate pitches, and warmth rubbed my skin. After a few more unsteady hymns, Lydia stood in front of the painted cross, opened her pocket Bible, and preached with a ferocity that pulled me to the forward edge of my chair. For a while, her words soothed my soul like aloe on a sunburn. I wanted to soak in the comfort, but was distracted by Bryan’s squirms, and the equally squirmy unease that twisted my nerve endings whenever I was out in public. Part of me screamed to run home and bolt the door. But at least a small part of me was able to savor these minutes of touching the real world.
&nb
sp; Barney followed Lydia with a time of prayer and an invitation to come up and talk to him about any needs or other “God stuff.” Camille and I stood by the back row of chairs and talked briefly while Bryan explored and the room slowly emptied. The dark sky outside the propped-open door worried me. We needed to get home.
But I was slowed again because Lydia hovered in the lounge area between the rows of chairs and the front door.
“Thank you.” I edged around her and beckoned for Bryan. “This was . . . amazing. How long have you been working here?” I asked.
She patted the shoulder of an old woman who shuffled past. “About two years. We’re sponsored by the Presbyterian district office. We hold services on Sunday and Wednesday nights, distribute clothes, and fill in the gaps when the local food shelf runs low. But mostly, we’re here to listen. Listen to what the Lord wants us to do. Listen to what people need.”
I nodded and shifted a half-step closer to the door. “Oh, thanks for recommending the victim center.”
She smiled. “I saw you chatting with Camille. Is the group helping?”
“A little. And I also figured out a project to help me get past this. I’m trying to find someone to help each day.”
Her smile grew. Her eyes reminded me of the poster of Jesus’ face hanging over my teacher’s head in third-grade Sunday school. Same soft kindness and burning intensity mixed together.
I braced my shoulders. “I figure if I fill the next two months with good deeds, I’ll be back to normal by the time Tom is home from his deployment.”
Her eyes narrowed as she studied me. “Can I offer you a thought?”
“Sure.” Everybody else does.
“Let the Lord show you who He’s wantin’ your help with. You don’t have to be doin’ this in your own power, you know.”
My project was the one thing I’d been getting right. Was she implying I wasn’t letting God lead me? Who was she to criticize the way I was working out my healing? “I guess I didn’t look at it that way. I’ve sort of—”
“Sermon time is over, Lydia. Time to give it a rest.” Barney lumbered up from the center aisle.
Lydia rounded on him. “Why did you make us sing ‘Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me’ again? I’ve been tellin’ you no one knows that song.”
“Anyone with an ounce of salt water in their veins understands that hymn.” Barney lifted his bristly chin to confront Lydia’s regal height. She was only an inch taller than him, but her posture made her seem even taller.
I glanced at my watch. “I’d better be going. It’s almost Bryan’s bedtime.”
Lydia and Barney paused in their squabbling to stare at me. “Do you need help finding your house again?” Lydia asked.
Heat crawled up from my neck. “No, thanks. I’ve got it figured out.”
Barney looked at me closely, and behind the Popeye roughness, his eyes held concern. He ran a hand over his head and tugged his ear. “Lydia, you been bossing people again? She looks a little put out.”
“No,” I said quickly. “Your wife was just giving me some suggestions for a project I’m doing.”
He stared at me blankly for a beat. Then he hooted. “Wife? Lord, spare me.”
Lydia’s eyes grew round, white flaring around her brown irises. Then she started to laugh, too.
Barney sank onto the edge of the coffee table and grabbed it for support as his whole body shook with chuckles. “I probably deserve to suffer in a lot of ways, but thank heaven that’s not one of them. It’s bad enough working with her.” But affection flecked his eyes as he glanced at her.
The fire in my face threatened to scorch the roots of my hair. “I’m sorry. I thought . . . and the way you argue . . . and . . .”
“Barney is a volunteer from our church.” Lydia fumbled with a large cross pin on her blazer lapel. She tried to look affronted, but a mahogany blush darkened her cheeks. “When you do this kind of work, you take what you can get.”
“Gal, anyone who can put Miss Saint in her place is welcome here. You’ll come back, right?”
I looked at the two odd missionaries: the scruffy, short, white man with a gift for grousing, and the polished, erect, African-American woman with a penchant for bossing. “I will.”
Thursday morning, two Pennys were back in Dr. Marci’s office for my appointment. One Penny crossed her legs and balanced an open notebook on her knee, desperate to take any road that would help me heal. The other Penny sat fence-post stiff, willing to move forward but only if it didn’t involve looking back.
Dr. Marci sipped coffee at her desk and jumped right to the topic I wanted to avoid. “So have the police updated you? Have they caught him?”
How was hashing everything through with her going to help me forget it? This whole thing was backward. “No, and no.”
“Does that frustrate you?”
Answers weren’t easy in a counseling session. Any comment could lead to deeper revelations. How did I feel? Such a complex question. “Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“I’m relieved. I want it to go away. If they catch him, I might have to identify him. Maybe testify.” I wasn’t a brave crusader. I wanted to pretend the whole thing never happened. Shame soured in my stomach—the way it had that day.
“Ma’am, can you describe him?” the policewoman had tapped the end of her ballpoint pen against a small notepad. I was sitting on the curb next to a stack of bottled water and a pallet of motor oil. Most of the activity was inside the store, behind us. Police voices murmured, and someone was setting up cones and waving cars away from the pumps.
I had strained to remember, but my brain couldn’t lock on to anything important. Instead I saw vivid images of tennis shoes, without laces, their tongues flapping open. “It all happened so fast. Baseball cap—black, maybe dark blue. Long hair, stringy. He was white, pale. His hair was really dark. Young. So young.”
“How tall was he?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I was on my knees looking up, so it’s hard to say. How are they?” I knew the answer. I’d knelt by their bodies, tried to stop the blood, and gripped the dear woman’s cold hand while we waited for the police. But I held on to hope that they would be revived. I turned and tried to see past the policewoman into the store where paramedics crouched beside the old couple.
Her professional mask stayed firmly in place. “Did you know them?”
I shook my head. How could I explain? I didn’t know them, but I knew them. Knew that they smiled at strangers. Knew that they teased each other. Knew that she had a breathy laugh, and he had a dimple. Knew that they were what I hoped Tom and I would be one day. Knew that it was my fault they’d been shot.
A few yards away, the young cashier answered the same questions, her voice shrill and animated. “He was whacked out, man. I’m tellin’ you. The guy was flyin’. I handed him the cash, but he was yelling, and then he started shooting. Don’t know what set him off.” She cursed and tossed her beaded braids back.
“It was me.” My throat was hoarse as if I’d actually released all the screams this scene deserved. “It was my fault. I made a noise and he panicked.”
The policewoman jotted more notes. “Ma’am, sounds like the guy was already twitchy. Now I know you’re shook up, but did you see if he had a car? When he ran out, did you hear an engine?”
“Call the morgue.” One of the paramedics straightened and shook his head. Blood stained his gloves.
A mewling sound rose from my throat. “No. No, no, no.”
“Is there someone you can call?”
Red lights circled in remorseless rhythm. Voices rose and fell. Summer heat bent the air as it rose from the blacktop near the pumps, thick with the odor of gasoline and stale hot dogs. After a few tries, I remembered our new phone number, and the police contacted Tom. By the time he arrived, my limbs had begun to tremble. The crime had sent an earthquake through my view of the world, and the aftershocks traveled right into my body.
“Before Tom got there, the p
olicewoman gave me the card for this place.” I lifted a hand to encompass Dr. Marci’s office, and the whole dreary building. “I remember thinking it was so weird that the sun was still shining. You know how if you go to a movie theatre during the day, when you walk outside afterward, it seems weird? Like it should really be nighttime? Like so much time has gone by. Or maybe because you usually see movies at night and you’re used to walking out to dark skies? It was like that. Everything had changed, but it was still bright. People kept driving past as if nothing had happened. That seemed so wrong.”
I shifted restlessly in my chair. “Look, do you really think rehashing all of this will get rid of my panic attacks? That’s my real problem.”
“We’ll talk about that next week. For now, you’re doing great. Be gentle with yourself. Let your project help coax you forward, but don’t push yourself too hard. Give yourself permission to take time to heal from this trauma.”
“Yeah, yeah. Sleep, eat, exercise, reduce stress, blah, blah, blah.”
Dr. Marci laughed at my sullenness. Apparently she took it as a good sign. Where did sarcasm fit in the stages of healing?
When I got home, I pulled out my notebook and wrote down anything helpful from my appointment that I could remember. The page with my list of good deeds held a large blank line for Thursday. I hadn’t fulfilled my project for today. I should have brought Dr. Marci a muffin and counted her as my good deed. Drat.
Bryan wouldn’t be home for three hours. I ought to be able to come up with something by then. I made a peanut butter sandwich and slouched at my kitchen table. I’d had little appetite these days, but with my limited activities I wasn’t burning many calories anyway. The thought of soft drinks especially turned my stomach. If I hadn’t been craving a Coke that night . . .
I pushed away from the table and grabbed my purse. I needed to get out and do something nice for someone. Then I could curl up on my safe couch and watch TV until Bryan got home. I’d had my fill of driving today and had nowhere to go anyway. So I walked down to the corner where Bryan’s bus came each day. Unless I planned to do a good deed for a mangy squirrel or a couple of robins, I’d need to keep walking.
