by Bonnie Grove
I skipped down the stairs. Maggie came up beside me. She had abandoned Jack and now had Lester hooked by the arm. “You must introduce us, dear.”
“Uh, Maggie, this is Lester.”
Maggie spun around and offered her hand for him to kiss. “Charmed.”
Lester looked addled. He took hold of her dangling fingers and gave them a little shake. “Pleased to meet you.”
Maggie wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Come sit and tell me all about yourself.” She threw me a Groucho Marx look, eyebrows wagging, as she led him to the sofa.
Across the room Jack was holed up with Mom, talking quietly. He glanced up and caught me staring. He grinned and flapped his hand, stay away. Mom laughed and shooed me away too.
Sekeena tapped my shoulder. “Creeper and I are going for a walk. Is it okay if we come back later?”
“It’s getting cold,” I said, then bit my tongue. Creeper stood by the door, pulling on his jacket. I smoothed Sekeena’s long hair. “Yes, do come back after your walk.”
“He and I got things to talk about.” She smiled.
I put my hand on her back. “Before you go, I wanted to ask you—have you found a place to move yet?”
She shook her head. “Not yet.”
“In that case, would you consider moving in here, with me?”
She gave me a wide-eyed look. “Seriously?”
I nodded. “I’d love the company.” I turned her toward Creeper. “Add it to your list of things to talk about on your walk, okay?”
“Okay.” I could hear the happiness in her voice. She joined Creeper and they slipped out the front door.
Maggie breezed by on her way to the kitchen; for once the gaggle of women weren’t following. She stopped a few feet past me and then backed up. “Getting Lester a cup of tea. You have good tea, don’t you, dear?” She rushed on before I could answer. Moments later she returned. “I plunked the kettle on. I need to get back. He’s just the nicest man. Why haven’t you introduced us before?” She laughed and scurried over to Lester, patting his leg as she sat.
Grace called to me from the foyer, “Kate, come tell me about these amazing watercolors you have.”
The party hummed and surrounded me. And as I joined Grace, I felt a sense of belonging. Everyone here knew my struggle—or at least some parts of it. They knew I had problems, but they were here anyway, celebrating with me. Accepting me.
48
I ran my finger over the calendar. It had been one year ago today, just four days before Christmas, since my abortion.
I gazed out the window at the fresh blanket of snow and felt vaguely annoyed by its brilliance. This was not a day to celebrate, nor a day that represented freshness. Not only was it the anniversary of an event I had tried to forget—drove myself over the edge of sanity in order to forget—but it was Sunday, and I had no desire to go to church.
I’d attended a few services since moving to the city, and Jack had always made it clear that I was under no obligation to attend. Which suited me. Still, Jack had done so much for me, and I felt more than a small duty to support him.
I sipped my coffee and sighed, a stone of discontent lodged in my belly. I didn’t know what I wanted, to be alone or to be with people. To stay or go. Restless, I snatched up the TV remote and clicked on the set. A flat-screen TV, mounted near the top cupboards, swelled to life. I swallowed more coffee, feeling the warmth of it seep into the rock in my gut. I flipped through the channels; a showcase of religious programming, infomercials, and sports programs. Just when I decided to turn it off, a familiar face filled the screen and my breath caught in my throat.
I froze, remote still pointed at the television, as the Reverend J. D. Slater hollered, red-faced, from his pulpit into the camera. “God is not mocked!” he shouted. “The Bible tells us He knows what’s been done in the dark places. He sees what’s done in the secret places.” Rev. Slater pointed an accusing finger at the camera, at me. “You think you can do as you please and go unpunished?” He paused for dramatic effect, I supposed. It affected me dramatically and I held my breath, waiting for my punishment to fall from the heavens. “God is a heavenly spotlight, blasting rays of truth into the dark corners of your life. He’ll expose your sin, and in the light of His high beams of holiness, you’ll have nowhere to run.” His chins wagged in fury. “No more excuses. You’ll be face-to-face with your wretchedness.”
With a trembling finger, I clicked off the TV and stared at the blank screen. I’d already been face-to-face with my wretchedness. I’d walked down that path. Maybe I was still walking it. My memories were intact, but my heart was still a box of shattered glass. And I had serious doubts that God could put it back together. Or would care to. At least not the God I saw reflected in The Reverend. His was an angry God. A black-and-white, right-and-wrong sort of God, much like The Reverend himself. A God who’d condemned me with his “high beams of holiness.”
But then there was the God I saw reflected in Jack. A God of seemingly endless patience. One who befriended people, walked beside them. A God whom Jack believed loved me. I used to assume I knew what love was.
But what kind of love could God have for someone like me? The love demonstrated by The Reverend or the kind demonstrated by Jack? Which one was the real God?
A small thought formed in my mind. Ask Him. I pushed it away. It struck me as the height of irony that hearing from dead people was mental illness, while millions believed it was sane as a Sunday drive to hear the voice of God.
I pushed my hands through my hair. What would I say to God, anyway? And what would He say to me?
Ask Him.
A tremble rippled across my lower back and up my spine. My body shook as if cold.
I spoke into the open space. “Who are you?”
I am the One who made you.
A sensation like a hand, warm as liquid honey, touched me, permeating my skin. Firm and soothing, yet light and calm, it caressed me, cradled me.
I whispered, “Oh, God.”
I am the One who knows you.
I was overcome with immediate intimacy. I felt a sensation like the deep searching of a hand, tender as it moved over the scar tissue slashed across my life. It massaged my mind and stroked the welted wounds of my spirit. I reached back with longing. A reunion of lovers lost to each other over time, now free to explore. The hand slid over my womb and lay like a blanket, and I cried out as our sorrow mingled together there.
Then warm honey flowed over the base of my spine, and my trembling stopped. An image of a hot, spinning marble lodged between my vertebrae filled my mind. It contained all of my anger, compressed into a tiny ball and hidden from my view.
The honey stopped just short of reaching the ball. I understood instinctively what was being asked of me; the One who knew me would not force His way into my anger; He only waited. My anger, my hatred, was justified. I’d been betrayed and had suffered because of it. Still, He waited.
I breathed my permission with one word, “Yes.” In an instant that place was invaded with warmth and I heard the crack of marble breaking open, shattering. I went down to my knees. A groan, deeper than words, poured out from my mouth.
God bathed me with His presence and my mind called out to Him, “I am known by You.”
And He sang back to me, My love, my love.
49
I sank into the sumptuous couch in Dr. Alexander’s office. Two days before Christmas, and not a holly leaf or jingle bell in sight. Maybe psychiatrists don’t celebrate Christmas, I thought. Or maybe Christmas decorations didn’t look professional for a man whose patients must include people from every sort of religion or nonreligion there was. Not that I could talk; my own house wasn’t exactly lit up for the holidays. But I would rectify that after the appointment by going shopping. For the first time in a long while, I wanted to celebr
ate.
Dr. Alexander raised his eyes from my file he’d been reading. “Tell me about your week.”
There were no words for what had happened in my kitchen two days ago. Certainly terms existed, phrases that could explain it—but no words could express my experience. I looked at Dr. Alexander’s crooked toupee and patient face, and knew it was best to hold my tongue. “There’s a teenage girl at Glen Hills, Sekeena, and she’s pregnant. She needs a place to live.” I bit my lip. He waited, said nothing. I cleared my throat as if about to proclaim a public announcement. “I’ve invited her to live with me.” I rushed on before he had a chance to say anything. “My house is so big, and I wondered, even when I bought it, what I would do with all the space. But this is a perfect solution. She needs a place to live, and I have all this space to fill.”
He frowned. “You should bring this up in group therapy.”
“Huh? Why?”
He raised his eyebrows high on his forehead and his toupee wobbled, then settled again. “To get feedback from people who know you.” He sat forward. “Taking a pregnant teen into your home is a huge responsibility for anyone. For someone with your history …” He sat back again, his eyes flicking over the file on his lap. “By connecting with other points of view about an issue, you’ll see things from different angles. Your group therapy members will come up with questions you wouldn’t think of yourself.”
It was my turn to frown. “It’s my decision.”
His face brightened into something approaching a smile. “Of course. Heaven knows you dislike following orders.” Heaven certainly did know. He tossed the file onto the small table beside him. “Many of the choices you made in the past were so difficult to live with that you tried to wipe them from your mind.” He gave me a pointed look. “The decision is yours, but I suggest you take advantage of the support you have around you.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Are you afraid after I come off the meds completely I might relapse—fall apart?”
He pressed his fingertips together. “You have a great deal of anger to deal with yet, Kate.”
“I know.” The sound of marble cracking resounded through my mind. I was willing to begin to let go of my anger. God had somehow entered into that burning, furious part of my mind and begun to cool it. I shivered at the memory. Of the collaboration of God’s and my desire to heal the wounds. It gave me hope that I could continue toward forgiving Kevin, Blair, and Heather. Even Donna Walsh. Someday. Not today. I didn’t have to do it today. But I could choose, just as Maggie had said. I had choices. It was a start.
“It was a good week,” was all I said.
His eyebrows arched, as if impressed, as he reached for my file. “We’ve been weaning you off the medication for a few weeks now.” His pen poised above the file, he said, “How have things been going for you at the lower doses?”
I smiled. “Fine.”
“Uh-huh. Racing thoughts? Dry mouth? Voices?”
Voices? Yes, one voice, but this time it was a voice of healing, of new beginnings. But what would a psychiatrist say to news that I’d heard the voice of God?
I recalled the first question the on-call doctor at the hospital psychiatric ward had asked me, “Have you been talking to God?” It was a diagnostic question, designed to see how far gone I was. Now, as of two days ago, God had spoken to me.
“I’m not hearing Kevin’s voice,” I said, a note of honesty ringing clear and sharp. Maybe too sharp. Dr. Alexander gave me a withering glance. Trying to keep things from a psychiatrist is like playing hide-and-seek behind a water hose. “I mean, it’s different,” I mumbled.
“Different? You’re hearing a voice?”
I took a deep breath. “No. I’ve started talking to God. Praying. And, well, it’s not like we sit around and chat. It’s just that He sort of … communicates with me.” Even to my ears I sounded crazy. Maybe spiritual things were a little bit crazy.
“And you believe God speaks to you?” There was a hint of weariness in his voice, as if he were plodding past scenery he’d seen before.
I waved both hands at him. “I’m just praying, that’s all.”
His eyebrow went up, but otherwise he didn’t move a muscle. “Do you consider yourself a spiritual person?”
Eliza Campbell had asked me the same question nearly six months ago. Then, I was plugged up, she had said. Now a fissure of joy ran up my spine. “Yes,” I said. “I’m a spiritual person.”
He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Yes, well, prayer and meditation are considered by many to be a vital part of good mental health.” He tapped the pad of paper with his pen. “And you haven’t heard Kevin’s voice?”
I straightened my shoulders. “I’m done talking to the dead. I’m ready to talk to the living God.”
Epilogue
The doorbell chimes. I jump up from the game of Uno I’m playing with Sekeena and Creeper and go to answer it. I glance at the clock; Jack is right on time. I pull the door open and the cool March air touches my face and arms. “We just started playing. We’ll deal you in next hand.” I wave him in, but he doesn’t move.
He stands under the porch light in his loose-fit jeans and denim shirt over a white T-shirt even though it’s still cool enough to warrant a jacket. His dark hair is tousled, his face clean-shaven. He stands like an actor who’s forgotten his lines. His blue eyes dart here and there, settling nowhere. He jerks his head to the right; he wants me to join him on the porch.
I grab a sweater and step out, closing the door behind me just as a burst of laughter erupts from inside, and Sekeena calls “Uno!” Jack looks past me, through the glass of the front door, into the house and smiles.
He looks back at me, and I gesture to two wicker rockers in the corner, but he shakes his head. I’m disconcerted by his uncharacteristic silence and a nervous giggle burbles up from my throat.
“What is it, Jack?”
He searches my face. Finally he says, “You know how you think about something for a long time? You play it out in your head over and over, how you think it’s going to go, but when the time comes it’s nothing like you thought it would be?”
I laugh in earnest. “That, as you well know, explains the last year of my life.”
He rubs his hands down the front of his jeans. “I’m having one of those moments right now.”
I’m puzzled by his words, but I wait. I know he’ll make it clear. Still, I wish he would agree to sit down.
Hands on his hips, he looks handsome, and flustered. I try to hide a smile. He looks up, blue eyes shining in the porch light. “I don’t know if I should say anything.” He turns toward the dark front yard. When he turns back, he says, “I’ve imagined what I would say. What you would say. Especially what you would say.” He presses his lips together hard and looks up at the porch ceiling. “I sound like a dope.”
I shake my head. I want to say no, he doesn’t sound like a dope, that I very much want to hear what he will say next.
He presses his hands together and points them at me, like directing a prayer my way. “You’ve been through so much. Since before I met you, your life has been this runaway train, and even though things have been better—” He interrupts himself, raising his eyebrows, asking me to confirm his observation.
And in a rush, I know what he’s going to say. My skin tingles with the knowledge. I nod. “Things are better for me.” I pause, searching for the right words. “I’ve come a long way.” I tap my temple. “I’ve found some peace of mind.”
“I know.” He smiles. “The thing is, I never knew— You are the most—” He stares down at his feet. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”
He takes two slow steps toward me. “I’ve wrestled with this for a long time, Kate. Whether it’s the right time to tell you. But I think we both know …”
My heart ricochet
s around my rib cage. “Tell me.”
He presses his lips together hard, then says, “I love you.” He blurts it out, the sounds running together, making them a single word.
Once again I am wrapped in the sensation of liquid honey pouring down my body. I’m known by him. His presence surrounds me, reaches out to me. Tears blur my vision. “Say it again.”
He laughs, his face open, relieved, happy. “I’m completely, stupidly in love with you.”
I beam at him. “I’m so glad.”
Then I’m in his arms and it is as if the fabric of his waiting is torn asunder, shredded by the moment of fulfillment. There are no tender touches, no soft exploration, no tentative parting of gentle lips. Instead his kiss is a bold declaration: I belong to him, and he to me. Connected by something larger than both of us.
He pulls back. “I don’t want to rush, Kate. I understand we need to go slow.” His hands run over my hair, my face, down my back to my hips, up again.
I touch his face. I nod yes, we’ll go slow. Take our time, whatever you say. “I love you, Jack.”
Tears well in his eyes, his voice is like gravel. “My love.”
My heart thrums in my ears. I pull back a little, so I can read his eyes. “Dr. Alexander says there are no guarantees. I’m making progress, but the future—“
He puts a finger to my lips. “The future belongs to God.” His finger trails from my mouth down my chin and rests in the small valley of my collarbone. “I love the living, breathing part of you, Kate. That will never change.” And his mouth presses down again.
Behind me the door opens. I turn.
Sekeena stands there, bug-eyed at the sight of Jack and me. “Whoa.”
