Intervention

by Rob Mclean

  Chelsea just shook her head.

  “It’s just until he sorts himself out. You know it’s my mother’s idea…”

  Chelsea gave her a withering look of scorn. It filled her heart with shame and told her how little her friend thought of her. She knew that Chelsea would never forgive her for hurting her brother and for being so pathetic that she let her mother govern her life.

  She didn’t know what she was going to do about Chelsea. It had crossed her mind to find another job, but the thought of leaving the bookshop saddened her. It had always been such a happy and uplifting place to work, but now she was so sad, she felt that she had no other choice. She cast her mind about thinking about what else she could do.

  She had spent some time in an old folk’s home as a volunteer. She had enjoyed being a carer, and at an early age, she had thought about being a nurse or even a doctor, but study had not been encouraged by her mother. ‘A woman’s place was at home’ was what she had been repeatedly told, and looking at all the delinquent kids from dysfunctional families where the mother worked, she had to agree that her mother might be right again.

  The thing she remembered most about that the old folk’s home was the oppressive heat. The oldies felt the cold, so they had the heating on all year round. That only made the cloying, clinging smells of their decrepit bodies and their leaking, fermenting fluids all the more pungent and heavy, despite the efforts of the harsh, sharp disinfectants.

  The oldies had not held back telling her how much they loved having her around, and although she found it good to be needed, it was always a wrenching shock to suddenly find a freshly made empty bed where one of her elderly friends had once been. It only served to painfully remind her that one day soon it would be her father who would be gone.

  She also considered working in a worldly bookshop, or some other type of sales job, but she doubted that Chelsea would release her from her own private purgatory by giving her a good reference.

  Even without Chelsea’s help, she wondered if her religious beliefs would be tolerated or overlooked now by a worldly employer. She wasn’t about to deny her Christianity if they were to ask her in an interview and they weren’t supposed to discriminate, but in the end if you didn’t get the job, who’s to say why?

  Although she lived at home and was grateful that she had put away a good sum that she could live on for a while, if need be, she knew that she had to work. Her parents were living on their own savings and the police pension, and although they would deny it, they needed all the help she could give them.

  She sighed and as she went into the front room, she consciously put her worries out of her mind and decided that whatever happens, it would be God’s will and that she would just have to go along with it.

  Angela found her mother sitting opposite her father in their armchairs. Her father was reading a novel and her mother, a biblical self-help book. They both looked peaceful and content. She wondered if she would ever get to that serene stage of life, and who would she be sharing it with?

  Her father greeted her with a warm smile, and she gave him a hug and a quick kiss on his cheek. Clarice carefully placed a bookmark in her book before putting it down to give her daughter a hug. “How was your day? Any better?”

  “No, still the same,” Angela said. Her shoulders sagged and she felt herself suddenly miserable. Tears threatened to fill her eyes.

  Her mother rubbed her upper arms and gave her a sympathetic, understanding look. “Keep the faith, dear. Things will get better.”

  Angela gave her a wobbly little smile in return. She had her doubts that her mother’s plan was such a good idea. It was alright for her to tell her to ‘hang in there,’ but she wasn’t putting up with Chelsea’s hostility every day. It wasn’t her phone that remained stubbornly silent. It wasn’t her friends that had shunned her.

  “Now, while I’ve got you,” Clarice said, moving on from Angela’s problems, “could you give me a hand with your father? He wants to get into his wheelchair.” Clarice went to get the wheelchair without waiting for a reply.

  Angela turned to her father. His oxygen machine was by his side, but he wasn’t wearing his mask. His large, thin hands trembled slightly as he held his book. “How are you going today?” she asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” he tapped a half filled glass of water on his side-table and gave her a smile. “Just had my meds.”

  Clarice returned with the wheelchair, and together, Angela and her mother lifted the old man to his feet. They straightened his dressing gown while he stretched and rubbed his sore places. They then walked him the few small steps to the wheelchair and carefully lowered him in place. It was a manoeuvre that they did more and more often as Geoff deteriorated and one that her mother was finding increasingly difficult to do on her own.

  As much as she tried not to think of the future, her father’s condition was impossible to ignore. How would they cope with him if things got worse? Would her mother put him in a home or would she get a carer in? Either option was way too expensive for them to do for any length of time. Maybe she could escape her job for a while and look after her father until…

  “You’re not still moping about your friend Chelsea are you?” Clarice asked.

  “No, I was…”

  “Well, don’t. I’ve told you already, things will get better for you, so just brighten up, okay?” She then turned her attention to fixing the oxygen mask into place and fussing over his appearance, before handing her husband the book he had been reading.

  Angela felt her anger rising at the whole unfairness of the situation. It was her mother’s fault that she was having all these problems anyway, not that she seemed to care. Her fault and Zeke’s. She knew it wasn’t right what she was doing to John, but the way she felt about him didn’t help her think straight. If only he were a Christian…

  On the other hand, she also knew that part of her still longed for the comfortable familiarity she had known with Zeke. Things hadn’t been that bad, had they? Her place in the world was defined and her path set out. She had met the man she was supposed to marry, but he hadn’t followed her script. It seemed he had his own ideas, and she didn’t know if she could now overlook his self-centered ways. She didn’t think that forcing Zeke to do something that he obviously wasn’t ready for would be a good thing in the long run either.

  She sighed again. If only her mother wasn’t so sure about her silly plan. John, who had burst into her life by rescuing her, was now cross with her. Zeke definitely was cross with her, and she hadn’t heard from any of her friends. Even Pastor Greg hadn’t been much help. Then she remembered what he had been saying about her parents’ history.

  “Pastor Greg came into the shop today to see me.”

  “That was nice of him,” Clarice said, but Angela could hear the concern in her voice. It occurred to her that her mother wouldn’t want the Pastor interfering with her plans. “What did he want?”

  “Oh, he was just seeing if I was okay after all that drama last Sunday.”

  “Did he tell you to dump the bozo?” Geoff asked, glancing up from his book.

  “Now, dear, we’ve discussed this. Zeke and Angela are just going through a few difficulties at the moment.” Clarice laid a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “It will all sort itself out once young Ezekiel comes to see how things are.”

  Angela ignored her mother’s assertions. “No, he talked about uneven yoked marriages.”

  “Really?” Clarice turned to face her daughter and crossed her arms.

  “Yes, apparently it can work.” Angela watched her mother’s face for a reaction and wasn’t surprised to see her features harden. “Or so he says,” Angela added diplomatically.

  “You won’t be getting any ideas about marrying that security man, will you?” Clarice stared at her daughter until Angela dropped her gaze.

  “I think he was referring to you and Dad.” Angela said, side-stepping her mother’s demand. She saw that her parents quickly exchanged looks.

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nbsp; Clarice dismissed her question with a wave of her hand. “That’s entirely different. Your father was a Catholic before we met.

  “A lapsed Catholic,” Geoff added.

  “That was your parents’ fault, not yours.” Clarice laid a hand on his shoulder. Angela knew that her father’s side of the family were Catholics, but had always assumed that they didn’t see much of them because they lived in Boston, on the other side of the country. Now she wondered what else there was to their story.

  Clarice turned to face Angela. “Besides, your father had been brought up in faith. Getting lost for a while is different to never having known the Lord.”

  Her mother’s words echoed in her head. ‘Getting lost for a while?’ Her long held view of her father as a stalwart of the faith had crumbled.

  If he could have lost faith, back then when he was her age and there was no alien around to make things worse, what did it mean for her? She desperately wanted to ask her father all about it, preferably when her mother wasn’t around.

  Angela snapped out of her musings when she saw that her mother was reading her thoughts as they played out upon her face.

  “But he’s strong in faith now.” Clarice paused, waiting for Geoff to confirm he words, but Angela could see that he was miles away, lost in his own thoughts. She wondered if they were memories from his days of doubt.

  When no reply came, she prompted him with a nudge. “Aren’t you, dear?”

  “Eh? Oh, sorry, I was…”

  “I said, your faith is strong now. Isn’t it, dear?” To Angela it seemed that her mother was not entirely certain of the answer herself and that it was important that her husband be seen to be with her in faith.

  “What? Don’t be silly. Of course it is.”

  Angela found that she had been hanging on his answer. She was surprised at how important her father’s position was to her and how relieved she felt that his faith remained strong. She supposed that it was because he was so near the end of his life, but also couldn’t help wondering about how much her own faith was based on her parents’ beliefs. She had never considered that her father would have ever lost his faith, just as she would never have thought she might lose her own. She pushed the thought out of her mind as impossible.

  “Pastor Greg did also say that I owe John some honesty,” Angela said.

  Clarice shook her head. “You can be as honest as you like after Zeke has proposed.”

  “But you wouldn’t be unevenly yoked if you were to bring John to faith…” Geoff said.

  “Bah,” Clarice said, throwing her hands in the air. “I don’t think he’ll ever do that. He hasn’t been brought up in a Christian home.” She sat herself back down in the armchair and picked up her book to let everyone know that she considered the conversation finished.

  Her parents would always agree beforehand on issues that came up for discussion, and she had found in the past they were always together on all topics, at least publicly. Angela found it unusual that her parents were not united on this issue. She knew her mother preferred Zeke, and usually her father would defer to her judgement on these sorts of matters. Now, he clearly saw little in Zeke anymore and was looking for a way to get John accepted. Her father had gone back to reading his book as if he had said nothing at all.

  “He might do it for me,” Angela said. A coy smile crossed her face. “He’s doing the chastity vow thing for me.”

  “Good point.” Geoff nodded, still not looking up.

  “Just saying that you’re a Christian isn’t good enough,” Clarice stated. “He’d have to prove it.”

  Geoff put his book down and asked his wife. “But how would you ever know if his faith was for real?”

  “You can’t fake faith,” Clarice snapped.

  “Can’t you?” Geoff went back to reading his book, ignoring his wife’s agitation. “I did for years.”

  Both Angela and Clarice stared at him, and then exchanged looks. Clarice looked to be about to say something out of anger, but held her tongue.

  Angela wanted to ask them a million questions, but Clarice just shook her head. She gathered up her daughter’s arm in hers, “Come and help me in the kitchen.” As she was taken along by her mother, Angela looked back to her father, but he didn’t look up from his book.

  Once in the kitchen, Clarice let out an exasperated sigh. “I do wish the Pastor hadn’t…” she pursed her lips in a tight frown, “interfered.”

  “I’m glad he did,” Angela said. “Otherwise I’d never have known anything about it.” She hated the way her parents still treated her as though she was a five-year-old.

  “You didn’t need to know,” Angela could hear the patronizing tone in her mother’s voice. “You still don’t.”

  She spun away and started to pull plates out of the cupboard, banging them down on the bench-top.

  Angela stood silently, annoyed at her mother’s attitude, trying to decide if she should press her mother for details or to wait and ask her father about it later, if she ever got him alone.

  Her mother had put the third plate down and paused. With her back to Angela, her hands still on the last plate, her shoulders slumped. After a moment, she slowly turned back to face her daughter. “It happened when I met your father. It was so long ago…”

  Angela took a calming breath. She had heard the story of how her parents had met hundreds of times. Her mother was in her mid-twenties and was going to a religious convention in L.A. with some of her sisters and friends, combining it with a sight-seeing holiday of the west coast. She had stopped to ask a certain young policeman for directions and the rest was history. The way she had told it, their courtship had been all so simple, nothing like her own.

  “Your Aunt Ruby, her friend Marie and I were visiting here…”

  “I know; the convention and you stopped to ask for directions.” Angela wondered where she was going with this retelling.

  Her mother shook her head. “We had lost your Aunt Ruby, in the crowds. One minute she was right next to me; the next I turned around and she wasn’t there.”

  “She’s younger than you, wasn’t she?” Angela remembered her as an eccentric, reclusive, quieter version of her own mother. She had always attributed her behaviour to her never having had children, being too sour and short-tempered to ever have a chance to find herself a good husband.

  “Four years younger. Your grandparents weren’t happy that she was going away with us. They said she was too young, but I said that it would be okay, that she was nineteen and that I’d look after her…”

  “So she got lost and Dad helped find her, right?” Angela could picture her peculiar aunt getting distracted by something and expecting everyone to be just as interested and wait with her.

  “No.” Clarice’s hands clenched at her apron, scrunching the fabric into tight balls. “She was assaulted.”

  “Assaulted?” Angela saw her mother’s face contort with the painful memory. She put an arm around her mother’s shoulders and felt her mother’s thin frame shaking. “I’ve never heard this before. How did it happen?”

  “We don’t know. We were down amongst the markets near the tourist beaches. It was on sunset and there were thousands of people around.” Angela couldn’t help wondering which beach it was, but decided now was not the time to go into details.

  “Ruby said that someone just grabbed her from behind. Put his hand over her mouth and dragged her down an alleyway.”

  “My goodness! That must have been horrible.” Angela tried to imagine what it must have been like for her.

  “It was,” Clarice said. She crossed her arms tightly, hugging herself. “I was furious at her and beside myself with worry. I was supposed to be looking after her, you see?” Clarice’s face screwed up as she fought back her emotions.

  She took a deep breath, and her body became serene as she exhaled. When she spoke again, it was with a calm and measured voice. “We searched for ages, but in the end it was your father who found her in the alleyway.”

/>   “What happened to her?”

  “Your father wouldn’t let us see her, not until the ambulance had seen to her first. She was that badly beaten.”

  “Beaten?” Angela echoed. Her aunt would have been about her age, happily on an exciting holiday when this happened to her.

  “He tried to rape her, but she called out for help and so he hit her. Probably just wanted her to keep quiet, but he didn’t stop until she was beaten unconscious.”

  Angela hugged her mother. She felt her mother’s warm tears soak into her blouse. She held her tight and comforted her. She hadn’t seen her mother this emotional before, and it felt strange to be the one doing the consoling.

  A little while later, Clarice pulled a tissue out from her sleeve, wiped her nose and composed herself. Angela wanted to ask more questions, but instead she rubbed her mother’s back and waited until she was ready to go on.

  “She got a venereal disease that wasn’t treated until it was far too late. It made her infertile.”

  “That’s horrible. The poor woman.” She felt so sorry for her and the way she had thought of her in the past. Her aunt’s weird personality was now understandable. “Did they ever catch the guy?”

  She was answered with a derisive laugh. “No, of course not. It took years for your aunt to physically get over that attack, and I don’t know that she will ever totally get over it altogether.” Clarice tapped the side of her head. “She’s been scarred for life.”

  Angela nodded. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yes, well. It’s a horrible world, full of nasty, evil people.” Clarice spat out the words with a venomous intensity. “It’s because of our inherently evil nature that this sort of thing happens all the time.” A deep scowl crossed her face as she pointed her finger at Angela. “And nothing will change. It’s only when Jesus returns to rule over us with a rod of iron that things will be put right.”

  “But…” Angela wanted to ask more about her aunt, but Clarice cut her off.

  “Thanks to his job, your father has seen the worst of man’s inhumanity. It’s enough to make anyone’s faith waver.”