by Ann Tatlock
She picked up the mister and sprayed each item on the altar with holy water. Each time she sprayed, as the mist tumbled down upon each object, Rebekah whispered, “The power of beauty in me, around me, on me. The power of love in me, around me, on me.”
She paused and took a deep breath. It was time to center herself. Before she could go on with the ritual, she would have to purify her mind and draw up positive energy from the earth, letting the power sink into every part of her body.
“You will learn,” Aunt Jo had told her, “that you yourself are divine. You are a part of the goddess and the god, the lady and the lord, the universal one. You can do anything.”
Rebekah stood and raised her arms. She shut her eyes and tried to release the nagging doubts, tried to dwell on the divinity within her. She hoped that Lena’s aunt was right and that she could do anything, because losing David would mean losing the best thing in her life.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The cramped church basement smelled of mold and old coffee and somebody’s too-sweet perfume. Eleven people sat in a circle on metal folding chairs, some chatting quietly, a few sitting silently as they waited for the meeting to begin.
John looked down at his hands, clasped loosely at his knees like two people caught in a conversation they didn’t want to be in. Nothing about his body felt right at the moment because he really didn’t want to be here, exposing himself as something he still didn’t like to accept.
He’d grown used to the A.A. meetings in prison, but it had taken a couple of years, mostly because in prison he was struggling to see himself not only as an alcoholic—which he had long denied—but worse, as a criminal. Granted, he was a lousy husband, a second-rate father, and an unreliable provider, but still—how do you go from that to a convicted criminal seemingly overnight? One day you’re holding a low-wage but honest job and the next you’re in the slammer without so much as a clear memory of the events that got you there.
For a long time he refused to put himself on a par with the other prisoners. They were the real criminals, the conscious wrongdoers. They had robbed convenience stores at gunpoint, sold crack cocaine on street corners, committed fraud, abused children, killed their wives. John Sheldon hadn’t done anything like that. He’d had no desire to kill a man and no intention of killing the man he did kill.
Only after thirty-three months and probably a hundred talks with Pastor Pete did John realize there was something about the human heart that could make a man do even things he didn’t want to do. Only after all those months of being locked up did he come to understand that there was something to the idea of good and evil, and if you didn’t choose the one, you’d be chosen by the other.
That was when he surrendered, seeing himself for what he was and knowing he’d go on spiraling downward if goodness didn’t intervene. God broke in then—safety net, savior, life itself.
Still, John didn’t want to be here at this A.A. meeting, admitting to strangers he was something he didn’t want to be. He wouldn’t have come if it hadn’t been a requirement of his probation. He certainly didn’t need A.A. to stay dry. Killing someone, he’d discovered, had a way of putting a person off alcohol for good.
John looked up with a start when a man across the circle began to speak. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he said as he rose to his feet. “This is the regular meeting of the Conesus Lake group of Alcoholics Anonymous. My name is Larry, and I’m an alcoholic and your secretary.”
He was a tall, gaunt man, about sixty-five years old. He had a narrow, fleshless face and thinning gray hair, and he wore a pair of baggy trousers that appeared to be held up not so much by his belt as by his protruding hip bones. He might have appeared more dead than alive except for the uncanny warmth in his eyes and a voice so rich in compassion it seemed to settle like a down comforter over the entire group.
“Let’s open our meeting tonight with a moment of silence and the Serenity Prayer.” He shut his eyes and bowed his head. Everyone in the circle followed suit.
In the next moment John heard the murmurs of the Serenity Prayer rise up around him. He heard himself join in, heard the words tumble from his own reluctant lips, heard above everything else Larry’s strong voice leading the group like a shepherd gently herding his flock.
John liked Larry instantly, knew there was something good and solid about him, and would have gone on listening to the man with intrigue if, upon looking up at the close of the prayer, he hadn’t found himself gazing directly across the circle at a woman who hadn’t been there a moment before. She must have slipped in quietly when everyone had their eyes shut. She had settled in the vacant chair right next to Larry, and though she’d come in late, she looked as unrushed and serene as if she’d been there the entire time.
Larry looked down at her and chuckled. “I hardly heard you come in, Pamela. Glad you could make it.”
“Sorry I’m late, Larry. Car trouble.”
“That’s all right. Car running okay now?”
“Yeah. I called Triple A and got it jumped. That was all it needed.”
“Good, good. Well, let’s get on with the meeting, then, shall we?”
Larry talked on, but John didn’t listen. He was too busy trying to steal glances at the woman named Pamela. He’d never seen anything like that at the A.A. meetings in prison, had never seen anything like that in prison at all, save in his own imagination. She was no doubt the kind of creature that invaded the dreams of every man behind bars, their waking dreams, their sleeping dreams, those gut-wrenching dreams that leave a man tossing feverishly in the dead of night.
She was lovely and classy and soft, without that hardened look of so many women who’d spent years cradling a bottle. She was young, but not so young that she hadn’t lived. She had an open, serious face and full red lips and hair the color of mahogany and doelike eyes that held a look John knew well. He was acquainted with that look from his years inside, had seen it often in the eyes of the prisoners, an expression that spoke of a loneliness so deep it seemed to be bottomless. How could a woman like this know such loneliness?
“. . . one new face,” Larry was saying. “Would you care to introduce yourself to the group?”
John realized with a jolt that Larry had spoken to him and was now waiting for him to respond. He shifted in his seat, cleared his throat. “Um . . . hi, I’m John. I . . . I’m not new to A.A. I’ve been in A.A. for about five years down in Virginia. I just moved back here again. I’m from here, or Rochester really, but we live here now.”
He pressed his lips together so as to stop stumbling over his words. He looked at Pamela. She looked at him. She smiled.
“Welcome, John,” Larry said. “We’re glad to have you here. Now I’d like to ask Rick to read a section from chapter five of the Big Book, and after that I’ll introduce the discussion topic for the evening.”
An hour and a half later, when John was walking home through the dusk, he remembered little of what was said at the meeting. He did, though, recall feeling annoyed at a man who repeatedly and loudly blew his nose into a soiled handkerchief. He remembered cringing in shared embarrassment at a woman who stuttered painfully, trying in vain to announce seven years of sobriety. He also knew he had reached into his wallet and pulled out a five to drop into the basket when it was passed around.
But beyond that, all he could remember were those eyes. Those deep, brown, lonely, lovely eyes.
The circle had joined hands at the end and recited the Lord’s Prayer. When they came to the plea about “lead us not into temptation,” he had squeezed his eyes tight, trying to rid his mind of unwanted thoughts.
O Lord, he prayed silently now, deliver me from evil.
But as he went on walking home through the fading light, he was all the while thinking of Pamela.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Every time Billy stepped through the entrance gate of the Conesus Lake Amusement Park, he felt happy and excited. He loved the crowds, the rides, the midway games, the ice cream
and cotton candy and fried foods on a stick.
The park was also the place that sucked Billy’s pockets dry of any spare change he had after he put most of his paycheck in the bank.
“Come on, Phoebe,” he said, tugging at his sister’s hand. “Let’s get to the arcade and win some tickets.” Once he’d played enough games and earned enough tickets, he could claim the prize he’d had his eye on for a couple of weeks now.
“You said you’d ride the merry-go-round with me,” Phoebe reminded him.
Billy nodded. “I will later. I want to go to the arcade first.”
“Is Beka working there today?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see.”
As they wound their way through the crowd on the midway, Billy was aware of the stares, especially from other kids—little kids, teenagers—but he tried to ignore them. Hadn’t they ever seen a person with Down syndrome before? There were plenty of them around, so Billy didn’t know what the big deal was. Anyway, he wasn’t nearly so freaky as the kids with dreadlocks, piercings, and tattoos, or the kids with a load of fake gold chains around their necks, their pants hanging down so low you could see the brand of underpants they wore. Now they were worth staring at. Billy pulled Phoebe along, cutting a determined path through the crowd, focused on reaching the arcade.
“Hey, Billy!”
Billy stopped short, and Phoebe stumbled into him. “Sorry, Phoeb,” he said. “I thought I heard my name.”
“Hey, Billy!”
Phoebe lifted one skinny arm and pointed toward the Toss-a-Ball game just ahead of them. “Look. It’s Beka’s boyfriend.”
David Morgan beckoned to them with a baseball in his hand. “Billy! Come on over and win your little sister a stuffed animal!”
Billy rocked on the balls of his feet, unsure of what to do. He wasn’t any good at the Toss-a-Ball game. He’d tried it a couple times before and didn’t like it. It looked as if it’d be easy to win that game, to smash that pyramid of cans all over the place, but the ball wasn’t a real baseball, and it was too light to do any real damage. One, maybe two cans fell, but never all six.
He felt Phoebe squeeze his hand. “Billy,” she said. “Look at those pandas! Maybe you could win me a panda.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, Billy. Just try, all right?”
He knew it couldn’t go well either way. If he played, he wouldn’t win. If he didn’t play, she’d be disappointed in him for not trying.
He allowed Phoebe to pull him over to the booth. David Morgan gave them a wide smile. But Billy wasn’t smiling. “No one wins this game,” he said.
David laughed. “Are you kidding? People win all the time. I just restocked the prizes an hour ago.” He turned to Phoebe. “You want Billy to win you a stuffed animal, don’t you?”
Billy followed David’s gaze to Phoebe’s eager face. Her eyes were wide as she nodded happily. He felt his teeth clench as he looked at the cans stacked on the board. “Okay. Give me one ball.”
“Listen, Billy,” David said, “it’s a better deal to go three for five. Five dollars gets you three tries, and there’s no way you can’t empty the shelf on three tries, is there?”
Billy had never liked David very much. He didn’t know why, but every time he saw the guy, he felt something turn over in his stomach. It may have been the fact that David Morgan was good-looking and he knew it. He had the kind of face that showed up on the cover of those Hollywood gossip magazines. Nice features, thick dark hair, perfect white teeth—the whole works. A face like that did something to a person, turned him into someone you couldn’t trust. Especially when he was dating your sister.
“I don’t know, David—”
“Here you go, Billy-boy. Three balls. Don’t disappoint the little kid there, all right?”
Reluctantly Billy reached into his pocket and pulled out a five. He laid it on the counter and picked up the first of the balls. He was surprised again at how light it was. He thought he might as well be tossing a marshmallow at bowling pins. He could have used the five dollars at the arcade, winning tickets for the prize he wanted.
He drew back his arm and hoped his anger would smash the pyramid. But he let go a ball that dropped short of the target by several inches, swerving off to the left and ending up in the tarp beneath the board.
“Tough luck, Billy,” David said. “But hey, you’ve got two more balls. Put a little more muscle into it and aim it just off center.”
Billy tried not to look at Phoebe, who was clapping her hands and hopping up and down. He took a deep breath, drew back, and tossed the ball. This one hit the target, and he felt a shiver of hope as the ball shaved off the peak of the pyramid.
“You got one!” David announced. “Okay, last ball. You can do it, bud.”
For a split second Billy thought maybe he could. If he aimed just right, if he threw hard enough, he could win that panda for Phoebe. In his mind he saw all five remaining cans explode outward, sailing off the shelf in different directions. Pulling his arm back like a pitcher on the mound, he collected all his strength and threw out his arm, sending the ball sailing. It soared in a trembling arc toward the target, but like the first ball, it fell short, missing the mark by a wide margin and landing with a thud on the tarp.
“Aw, too bad, Billy-boy.” David grinned, then winked at Phoebe. “Maybe next time, huh?”
Billy clenched his teeth. He didn’t take his eyes off the cans that had outdone him. He wanted to tell David there wasn’t going to be a next time. He wasn’t going to fall for this one again and waste his money. He wanted to yell at David, tell him the game wasn’t fair, because someone who’d thrown the balls as hard as he’d thrown them should have knocked down all the cans. Something wasn’t right here if a person tried so hard and couldn’t win.
He felt Phoebe squeeze his elbow. “It’s all right, Billy,” she said. “Never mind. Let’s just go to the arcade.”
He ignored her for a moment but finally gave in as she tugged him away from the booth. Holding hands, they stumbled on down the midway, their tennis shoes pressing against steamy blacktop, through sticky puddles of melted ice cream and discarded cotton candy, over generator wires stretched out like black snakes in the sun. Billy thought Phoebe might have said something, but he couldn’t hear her over the carnival barkers and the music coming from the rides. He didn’t bother to ask her what it was. He looked straight ahead, seething until they reached the arcade.
Rebekah stood behind the counter, collecting tickets and handing out prizes. Billy marched to the glass case holding the toys and trinkets, searching for the one item he wanted.
He let out a sigh of relief. It was still there.
“That’s the last one, Billy,” Rebekah said, tossing a handful of tickets into a bucket.
Billy looked up anxiously. “Are you sure? There’s no more?”
“Nope, they’re gone. We only had a few, but apparently there were people out there who wanted the silly things.”
“It’s not silly.” Billy looked back down at the nightlight that was nestled in one corner of the glass case. On the white plastic covering was the picture of a tiny lamb sleeping on a patch of grass.
“They’re for babies,” Rebekah said.
“No they’re not.” Billy shook his head. “They’re for anyone, and I like it.”
Rebekah shrugged. “Whatever.”
Billy was sure the lamb was the one his Sunday school teacher had read about from the Bible, the one that lay down in green pastures and walked with the shepherd beside still waters. He liked that, and he wanted to have the lamb in his room, where he could see it every day.
“How many tickets do you have, Billy?” Phoebe asked. Billy rubbed his forehead as he thought. “I remember. I have seventy-nine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Dad counted with me. We counted three times.”
“So how many more tickets do you need?”
Billy pulled a slip of pape
r out of his pocket and looked at it. “Two hundred and twenty-one.”
“Wow. That’s a lot.”
“Yeah. I better get busy.”
“Can I help? I usually win some tickets playing that bowling game.”
“Okay, sure. Here’s a dollar, Phoeb. You get four tokens.”
“Don’t worry, Billy. We’ll win the nightlight.”
“I hope so.” Billy looked up at his sister behind the counter. “Can you hold it for me, Beka? Don’t let anyone else buy it?”
She shrugged again. “Sorry, Billy. I have to sell it if somebody wants it, you know? I could lose my job if I didn’t.”
Billy looked at the nightlight again. He had to have it.
He went to the token machine and started feeding it dollar bills.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Andrea pulled the bedsheet up to Phoebe’s chin, then bent down to kiss her cheek, her forehead, her nose. That always made Phoebe smile. “Good night, sweetheart,” Andrea said.
“Good night, Mommy.”
“Do you think you can stay in your own bed all night tonight?”
“I don’t know.” The child pursed her lips, looked up at her mother with big round eyes. “I’ll try,” she promised. “But I wish I had my own room.”
“Someday you will. Your own room with all your own things.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
“Good night, Phoebe.” Andrea moved to the door and switched off the light.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“We forgot to say my prayers.”
“Oh yeah. Okay, I’m listening.”
“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. May angels watch me through the night and wake me with the morning light. Amen.”
“Okay, go to sleep now, Phoebe.”
