Intended for Harm

by C. S. Lakin

  Rest. That was what Jake needed, more than anything. He’d given up wishing for Leah’s return, for answers, for sense. Now he would settle for simpler things—like a good night’s sleep, like one quiet evening in his unbearably empty house, full of demanding, hurting children. He had no time to deal with his own hurt. He felt like one of the Iran hostages—blindfolded, banging into unfamiliar walls, wondering if he’d ever see the light of day again, smell the fresh air of peace, tranquility, on home soil.

  He’d stopped asking why and how come and how could she. Why she hadn’t left a note, called, sent even a postcard.

  He caught Reuben scanning the audience as they stood in the wings, as scores of costumed children found their places. He saw tears pool in his son’s disappointed eyes. “Maybe she’ll be here; maybe she’s late,” he said. “She wouldn’t miss my Christmas play, Dad, would she?”

  Jake’s throat closed up. He couldn’t think of any words in the entire English language he could use to answer his son, to construct a coherent sentence, one that wasn’t embedded with sharp spikes.

  As he made his way to a seat in the back, in the darkest section, he grimaced in memory. He had come home to find Simon enraged and Reuben in tears. Dishes and food smashed all over the kitchen floor. Levi wailing and Dinah screeching in her highchair, struggling to get out. Simon like a tornado had upended everything in the house, chairs flung, pillows ripped and bleeding feathers, curtains yanked down from their rods. Not until after midnight, when Simon had exhausted his rage and collapsed on his torn-up bed, could Jake feel the intensity of her absence, a giant gaping hole in the middle of his heart. Jake had called the police, was told he had to wait twenty-four hours before reporting her as a missing person, and he’d urged Reuben to remember—was there anything she said, where she planned to go. His despondent son had recounted faithfully, the words stabbing him as he spoke.

  Jake’s heart ached in the midst of his anger. How could she do this to them, to her own children, as they stood and watched? She had gotten into a big orange and white bus, he said, taken her suitcase and guitar. A big black man was driving—Jake knew who that was. Another man took her things and put them inside the bus. Reuben had heard her say to Simon she was just going to play some music, that she’d be back soon. She promised. Jake had gone down to the club, pried phone numbers out of the bartender, tracked down friends who shrugged protectively or noncommittally—regardless, they only knew Leah and the band were on the road, as if there was only one, although for him there was only one—the one that led away from his home and out to the rest of the wide world. He searched unsuccessfully the entertainment sections of a hundred newspapers, clueless what they might call their group, hoping for a short column or article about a small rock band touring out of LA, with a runaway mother singing lead and playing acoustic guitar.

  This year had passed in a heady rush. After the incident last summer, with Leah leaving the kids in the car as she took that stroll into the ocean, where a lifeguard had to fend off her thrashing arms as he swam with her back to shore, getting a black eye in the bargain. Unknowing that call at work from the police would be the first of more to come. As one doctor after another tried different drugs, as nothing worked. Until that last doctor, who recommended she be institutionalized, put away, locked up in some mental ward, a sanatorium. Just the word conjured up horrible images—a place meant to sanitize, erase contamination, wipe clean her mind, the way you would scrub bleach on bathroom tiles to kill germs.

  Jake pressed his back against the auditorium wall, pressed his hands against his face, sifting through the images, trying once more to figure out how the pieces fit together. He needed a picture to form, but all he ever got were bits of blue sea and brown sand and yellow heat and red anger and black pain. Leah lashing out and smacking the doctor across the face, two nurses running into the consultation room trying to restrain her. Is that why she left a week later? Did she really think he would let anyone lock her away like that? Or had she only come to believe she was already locked away, just hadn’t seen it before—some invisible cage with glass bars? How could she think of her life like that, as if she were a trapped animal? How could she think? Had she bothered to think?

  She had left him with four small children to raise. Just dumped them in his arms and later, gator. How nice of her to clean the house, make dinner. Arrange for after-school care for Reuben and Simon. Preschool for Dinah and Levi. She had it all worked out so Jake could just go about his normal schedule, work all day, come home each night and carry on. Carry all. Why, he wouldn’t even notice she was gone, everything running so smoothly and efficiently and why the hell hadn’t she left him a note? Not even bothered to say good-bye, thanks for the memories. Too much to wish she could have just said I love you. Loved you. Loved them all in her own crazy way, with a crazy love.

  Tears gushed down his face; he couldn’t wipe them away fast enough. More stares and clearing throats as three children with robes and long cotton beards took the stage and one began an oratory of the night the savior of the world was born. Silent night. Holy night.

  Jake slipped out through the heavy double doors into his wholly silent night full of holes. He checked his watch, told himself to be back in an hour, plenty of time. He gulped down the crisp night air like a drowning man clawing for purchase in a raging river, zipped up his coat, pulled up the collar, set feet pounding the sidewalk. He would just circle the block, circle and circle, since it would always bring him back to the same place anyway. Regardless. Without regard.

  Later that woeful night he had found Leah’s notebook of poetry on the floor beside their bed, stuffed full of words. Shocking, debilitating words he let eat away at his heart with its corrosive acid. He didn’t know words could contain such pain, those small inconspicuous shapes formed by graphite and ink. And yet spattered with so much joy and revelry for life. He journeyed through her pages in search of clues, understanding, answers. All he ended up with was an armload of puzzling questions, and under their ponderous import finally fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Jake sobbed, great uncontrollable heaves, the first time he had truly let himself cry, surrendering to the frightening feeling of helplessness. He stopped at the corner, found himself in front of the small quaint church he had walked past a hundred times while taking his children to school. Night-blooming jasmine trailed up the white-painted wood siding of the building, filling the air with a sweet scent that drew him close. Under the soft illumination of the streetlights, Jake noticed the well-tended gardens, the neatly mowed lawn, then spotted the partially open front door with light spilling out from within.

  He hadn’t thought about God in years, not since those boring Sunday school classes his mother had made him and Ethan attend awhile, when they were in elementary school. His mother thought a bit of religious education would enrich them, but neither of his parents attended church other than on special holidays, Easter and Christmas, his father complaining and bucking in resistance, eventually giving in, fussing in a rarely worn suit and tie as if it were infested with fleas. And as Jake tiptoed into the pew-lined sanctuary and looked around, he knew it wasn’t God he was searching for. God had never made an appearance in Jake Abram’s life up till now. He certainly didn’t expect some divine lifeline to drop down from the heavens and rescue him from the failings of his life, his own doing, that fact he’d readily admit. What was so appealing about some all-powerful vengeful father who made a bunch of tough, impossible-to-keep rules, who you could never please, sinful in his sight? Most of what he recalled from Sunday school were the rules and the threats of punishment, like God was Santa Claus, making a list, checking it twice, looking to see who was naughty or nice. No thanks. He’d had enough father in Isaac Abrams to last a dozen lifetimes. And then some.

  What he wanted was a place to grieve, apart from curious eyes, and this he found. Seeing no one around, he made to sit on one of the pews, then when his knees gave way, fell to the carpet in the aisle with a thud, the table
of flickering candles before him giving solace with little warmth as he broke, letting the pieces fall where they willed. He heard sounds arise from his chest, otherworldly and mournful, although part of him detached, stood back and watched impassively this man full of shame and hurt and remorse.

  After some length of time, the tears emptied out and his sobs subsided—more from exhaustion than anything else. He startled at a touch on his shoulder, jumped up, spun around.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  In the semidarkness, with blond hair sparking from candlelight, her young, pale face made him wonder if an angel had descended to minister to him. Then his eyes caught on her bright-yellow-stained fingers. Her eyes noticed his perplexed ones.

  She gestured to an open door off to the side. “I’m the gardener for the church. It’s from the lilies—the pollen. The arrangements for the Christmas program. Stains my fingers but the blooms are too delicate for gloves.” Jake’s numb and empty brain tried to catch up, figure out a way once more to converse with the living, pulling him back to a sharp awareness of passing time. He looked at his watch—almost an hour spent. Spent. There were Reuben and Simon and the Christmas play and then home to his other children and his life waiting for him, an endless march of days ahead and he had no idea how to continue on.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “Can I get you something—a drink of water, some tea?”

  All Jake could do was nod, the life so drained from every limb he couldn’t hold himself upright. He sat on a pew as the young woman, in casual jeans and a peasant blouse, hair bobbing along her shoulders, left him. The candles shuddered as she passed, then grew in brightness. He was grateful she didn’t turn on lights, expose his pain to harsh scrutiny.

  “Here,” she said, appearing suddenly by his side, handing him a mug of tea that smelled like mint. His sense of time was skewed. He needed to get back to the auditorium before Reuben ran through the school in a panic, wondering if his one remaining parent had also decided to up and leave on a whim.

  “Thank you,” he said, grateful she wasn’t asking questions or giving him a five-cent sermon. She stood close enough for him to smell her earthy scent, the aroma of rich soil laced with the fragrance of lilies. The smell was at once intoxicating and restful. Suddenly he wished he could stay there, in that moment, just close his eyes and sleep.

  “My name’s Rachel. Do you live around here?” She watched him sip his tea and her smile seemed carefully placed, as if she knew how hurtful a smile could be.

  “A few blocks west. My boys are in a play tonight, over at the school. I . . . I should get back . . .”

  He handed her the half-empty mug and stood, found some strength and balance—enough to get him the two blocks to school. After that, he’d have to dig deeper for more, although he wondered if his stores of strength and resolve had finally been depleted. She walked him to the door. Her eyes studied him, void of pity or recrimination. For that he was grateful. In some other life, on some other world, he would have considered them beautiful eyes

  . They reminded him of deer’s eyes—soft brown, tender, trusting.

  “If you need someone to talk to . . .”

  “I’m fine,” he said too quickly. The lie flushed his face. He struggled finding something else to say, but she touched his arm and he stopped trying. The mouth of the night yawned open and he stepped out into it, reluctant to leave. Her presence was strangely soothing, a soporific.

  “Thank you—for the tea.”

  “I usually work here on weekends. It’s peaceful in the gardens, and we have a small yard out back. Come sometime. Bring your kids.” She added, “They can play. And we could talk.”

  Only after he said thanks again and then good-bye and got halfway down the block did he realize she hadn’t mentioned him bringing his wife. As if she knew. He thought about her quiet manner, the calm peace draped around her; he’d forgotten that some women could be like that. A soothing shelter of calm instead of a raging storm.

  The things he had forgotten. Like dreams of carving wood and finishing college and striding his way through life as if it were an adventure beckoning. Yearning stirred afresh in him, as if this stranger had watered some dormant seed in his soul. He’d thought the ground of his heart too trampled and hardpan and depleted, but there it was—a minute sprout of something, perhaps hope. Maybe Leah would come home, stride through the door repentant, the prodigal wife, done with sowing her oats and ready to embrace her family. He blew on that tiny spark, fanning it, coaxing it to life as he slipped into the auditorium and caught the last scene of the play.

  He smiled as Reuben and Simon, in a throng of robed classmates, sang “White Christmas,” a strange song to sing in LA with the temperature in the sixties. He thought about a brief article he’d read in the paper last winter, how it had snowed in the Sahara Desert for thirty minutes. He thought about the snow in Colorado burying the streets of his town in a heavy, deep mantle of white. And how after enough spring sun shone hard and determined, life would sprout again, the plants feeling warmth on their faces and turning to soak it in. That’s what hope was like, he considered. Like snow. A great white hope that buried you for a time but underneath it all held promise.

  If only he could hold onto that, believe it with all his heart. Then maybe he could get through. Just maybe.

  Part Three: 1980–1988

  Song of Songs

  A collection of love poems forming a book in the canonical Jewish Scriptures and in the Roman Catholic canon of the Old Testament; a heart song, the heart’s cry of joy.

  1980

  Let My Love Open the Door

  When everything feels all over

  Everybody seems unkind

  I’ll give you a four-leaf clover

  Take all worry out of your mind

  Let my love open the door

  To your heart

  I have the only key to your heart

  I can stop you falling apart

  Try today, you’ll find this way

  Come on and give me a chance to say

  Let my love open the door, it’s all I’m living for

  Release yourself from misery

  There’s only one thing gonna set you free

  That’s my love, that’s my love

  —Pete Townshend

  “Hey, I didn’t hire you to tackle the jungle back here.”

  Rachel pulled her gaze from the invasion of buttercups proliferating along the edge of Jake Abrams’s lawn and watched him approach. Levi, waving a dull, rusted trowel and sitting cross-legged beside her, lit up as his father walked out the back sliding door into the yard.

  “D-daddy, we’re ’tacking w-weeds. Rachel says they’ll k-kill the grass.”

  Rachel wiped hair from her face and grinned. “Levi and I have taken on the challenge. Eradicate and destroy. And it’s such a nice warm day, considering.” There always seemed to be one week in February that defied the weather trends; she figured it had to be close to eighty in the confines of the sheltered yard. And there was nothing that brought her greater joy than plunging her hands into warm soil and helping things grow. Even this early in the year she could feel a stirring—as if the unseasonable warmth were tickling the blades of grass and leafless shrubs and trees, teasing them with promise of regeneration.

  Dinah dropped her plastic ponies and bounded over from the sandbox, wrapping her arms around her father’s legs. Jake mussed his son’s hair, and Rachel noticed the shimmer of joy in his eyes. Not something she’d seen often, these few weeks she’d been babysitting the two little ones. He plopped down beside his son, who showed Jake the large mound of vanquished weeds, then scanned the rest of the yard.

  “It sure is a mess back here. I’ve never had time to deal with it. Is there anything worth saving under all those brambles?”

  Rachel pulled Dinah into her lap and breathed in her sweet-fragranced hair. Johnson’s baby shampoo—her own mother had used it on her and Abby when they were
small and it brought back a flash of memories of hours playing in the bathtub and blowing soap bubbles with her sister.

  “Sure. There actually used to be a nice patch of landscaping back there. Some gardenias and azaleas, and a variety of lilies all along the fence, although it’s still too early to tell what those will be. Someone planted a lot of bulbs back there too—see the daffodils springing up? I think with a little effort we could reclaim that patch of ground as well. If you don’t mind. It’s hard for me to sit out here with the kids and not do something with my hands.”

  “No, that’s great. I really appreciate it. The mess kind of reflects my life. The more I can tidy it up, the better I’ll feel.” Jake put on a smile but Rachel sensed pain oozing out behind it. “This new work schedule is nice—getting home before dark. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your willingness to come over early and help get the boys off to school.”

  “I’m glad for the work.” She’d decided early on, the first week he hired her, not to let on how much work it truly was caring for these children. They were all in pain, reeling from their mother’s cavalier flight, needing so much attention and resenting her intrusion into the family dynamics. Simon was by far the most difficult. He made no attempt to mask his disdain for her, such intense hostility for a boy of seven. And while Simon’s hurt boiled over in his speech and volatile actions, Reuben worked hard to bury his. Always trying to put on a brave face, eager to help, full of polite remarks. Maybe it would be better for Reuben to get mad and blow up; he seemed so tightly wound. Thankfully, the two youngest ones seemed less affected by their loss, more resilient, but that was probably due to their age. Rachel doubted Dinah would even remember her mother after a few years passed.