by C. S. Lakin
Joey yelled up to him. “That was a bad thing to do, Simon.”
Simon was speechless, his brother standing there—talking, for crying out loud! A shiver ran up his spine, rattled his head.
Joey spoke again. “God saw that. He sees everything you do, knows what you’re thinking.”
Simon gripped the edge harder, noticed his knuckles turn white. “Saw what?” he managed to get out his mouth.
“How you threw me off the roof. But he sent his angels to save me. It’s in the Bible.”
Simon’s head spun. Was he really having this conversation? “What’s in the Bible?”
“ ‘For He will give his angels charge over thee. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone—’ ”
“What on earth are you blabbering about?” Five years old and spouting Bible verses?
“The Devil tried to get Jesus to throw himself off a mountain, but Jesus told him you shouldn’t test God. You shouldn’t, Simon.”
Simon gulped. This is not happening. I must be in shock. “Shouldn’t what?”
“Test God.”
“Test what?”
“Test God, Simon. Put him to the test.”
Suddenly, Simon pictured Joey telling Rachel what he did. He forced out a laugh from his unbearably tight chest. Like they’d believe Joey. Even though they always believed Joey, how could they believe this? With Joey perfectly fine, apparently not a freakin’ scratch on him!
“Are you going to tell on me?” Simon asked. “They’ll never believe you if you do.”
“They will. I always tell the truth. Lying is a sin.”
“Oh, for—” Simon abruptly stood, strode over to the ladder, hurried down the rungs, pulled the ladder away from the roof where it fell in a loud clatter to the hard dirt. He fiddled with the metal latches on the extension, his hands shaking so badly he couldn’t manage, kicked at the thing, let out a frustrated scream.
“Simon!”
Simon spun around at Rachel’s voice, saw Rachel walking toward him, questions swimming in her eyes. Panic screamed through his veins, making his heart pound so hard it hurt.
“What on earth are you doing with that ladder? You’re not trying to get up on the roof, are you?”
Simon swallowed past the dry cave that was his throat. “Just seeing how . . . it works, how it folds . . . just figuring it out so I can put it back together, get it back in the garage.”
Rachel watched him continue messing with the ladder, Simon keeping his head down, avoiding her gaze, willing his breath to slow while sweat practically gushed down his forehead and neck.
“Where’s Joey?” she asked.
Simon sucked in a breath, started to answer. “He’s around—”
“Here, Mommy.”
Simon jerked up his head, watched Joey run over to Rachel on his unshattered legs, put his small unbroken bony arms around her, his unsmashed head leaning against her waist, his unbloodied hands on her hair. Simon wrenched his gaze back to the ladder, listened to Joey chatter gleefully with his mother, as she asked him how he was and did he want some cookies and milk, and Joey saying nothing, nothing at all about what just happened, although the knife in Simon’s gut told him Joey would be telling, just as he always did, giving his report dutifully and obediently.
When Simon could hear them no longer, he found a way to get on his feet and wandered like a lost man around the side of the house to the patio, carefully listening to make sure no one was in the kitchen, or could look out the window and see him squat down, study the unmarred concrete, smooth, not a dent or crack or anything to attest to the fall of a body to pavement.
Simon felt a strange chill run across his neck, like someone was watching him. He spun around, looked up at the kitchen window, expecting Joey’s face pressed against the glass, making a face at him. Or Rachel staring at him in horror, having just heard Joey’s story.
But the window showed nothing but the empty reflection of sunlight.
Simon looked up at the sky, picturing God on his throne, some old man with a long gray beard, glaring down at him, waggling his finger at him in warning, in judgment.
Simon laughed, ignoring his rattled nerves, brushing away the crazy, confusing thoughts that railed at him, making his head ache. He glanced one last time around him, searching for some sign, for anything to tell him he wasn’t going nuts.
After a while—he had no idea if minutes or hours passed—he wandered back into the house in a daze, unable to tell if he was tired, hungry, or upset. He passed Joey, lying on the rug, elbows propped up, head in his hands, watching some cartoon, Dinah on the couch eating an apple, who knew where everyone else was. Joey smiled at him and Simon shuddered. Why is he smiling at me? Joey’s smile seemed void of angry, of smugness. Joey acted just the way he always did when someone was mean to him, after he scolded them for their bad behavior—like the matter was closed, like he’d forgotten it had ever happened. Like he’d forgiven him.
Simon shook his head. Surely he was going crazy. He strode into his bedroom, shut the door, locked it, pulled down the blinds and threw himself down on his bed in the dark, willing himself to wake from this nightmare.
Jake watched from the corner of the studio, surrounded by mothers waiting to pick up their girls, the sweet smell of steam and chalk and a hint of perfume saturating him. Dinah had begged him enough times to come watch her class, but he’d never found the time. Yet, he knew that was no excuse, wondered why he’d never come all these years to see her practice, thinking attending her many recitals was enough, thought she’d rather he see her dance on stage, the moves all perfected, in her shimmering costumes.
He didn’t know much about ballet, practically nothing at all. But he could tell Dinah had talent, the way she felt the music, moving so much like Leah, her mother’s graceful long arms and legs, in an easy fluid motion, like swimming through air with the ease of a dolphin or some other aquatic creature, unbound by gravity. The older she got, the more Leah’s features appeared on her face, and it often unnerved him. Just like Simon, the two of them mirror images of Leah, male and female, two sides of a coin, with Simon embodying her fury and wildness and erratic behavior, and Dinah reflecting Leah’s softer, gentler side, the side Jake barely remembered but was reminded by Dinah’s light-hearted laugh, and her funny giggle when she’d play around with Joey.
Joey sat cross-legged at his feet, enraptured by the flurry of arms and legs flying across the wooden floor, the girls spinning in dizzying circles, standing tall on their pink toe shoes, the piano chords striking the air with emphatic reports. But, Jake noted, his eyes followed only Dinah, reminding Jake of the way he himself had clung to his mother at that young age, being mistreated and belittled by his father and seeking comfort in girlish affections.
Jake wished Joey’s brothers didn’t pick on him so much, treat him with such disdain. He’d lectured his sons to no end, but they never listened. Nodded, pretended to concede, then when his back was turned, continued their cruelties. Although, Jake wondered how much of Joey’s complaints were really true and how much were exaggerations. Joey had a wild imagination sometimes. Like the time a few months back when Joey claimed Simon had pushed him off the roof, Joey telling it so matter-of-factly, with little irritation in his voice. Why would he make something like that up, if not just to get Simon in trouble? But could Jake blame him? Joey had three big brothers, and he was only five. Big kids resented their younger siblings trying to insert themselves into their games, their lives. Maybe Joey, feeling hurt and rejected, tattled on his brothers to strike back—although that didn’t seem to jive with Joey’s nonjudgmental nature. Jake had never known a boy so sweet and affectionate. It probably just hurt his little heart when he tried to join in with the boys, only to be pushed away.
A round of applause startled Jake, and then he realized class was over, watched Dinah rush off to gather her things, unwrap the ribbons crisscrossing her ankles, take off her ballet shoes, pack them in her bag.
A few minutes later she pressed through the small crowd of mothers and daughters, found him.
“I’m ready,” she said, breathless. “That was a good class, wasn’t it?”
Joey stood and Dinah brushed chalk off the back of his pants.
“You were terrific. You can really fly through the air on those leaps.”
“Those are grand jetés, Dad. My favorite steps, aside from pirouettes. But I still need to work on those.”
“I’m sure you will master them soon, sweetie. You work so hard. I have every confidence you’ll be a first-rate dancer someday.”
“A principal, Dad. That’s what it’s called.” Dinah wiped her flushed face with the small towel draped around her neck, sipped from her water bottle she carried in her hand.
Jake led them out to the car, waded through the bottleneck in the parking lot, all the parents vacating at the same time, trying to merge into the larger mall parking lot, jammed with last-minute Saturday Christmas shoppers, reminding Jake he still had to find some time to shop, get the kids and Rachel their gifts. Where had the year gone?
The car steamed up quickly, with Dinah’s skin radiating heat and the wet winter morning leaving a layer of film on the windshield, although the rain had stopped. They rode in silence, Jake eyeing his children in the rearview mirror, Dinah lost somewhere in her imagination, no doubt dancing, replaying her steps, Leah’s smile on her face, sending a chill across his neck in the warm car. Joey sat pensive in his booster seat, serene, relaxed, so unlike most children who only loosened up like that when they were drowsy. But Joey’s eyes shone bright, lit by some inner light.
As Jake pulled up to the corner, waiting for the red light to change, Joey said, “Daddy, turn here.”
“What?” he asked, looking again at Joey in the mirror. “We’re heading home. That’s the opposite direction.”
Joey’s voice came out even, unemotional. “I know. Just turn here.” He pointed to the right, kept his finger hanging in the air, waiting.
“Why? Is there someplace you want to go?” Joey’s lack of excitement told him otherwise. Jake frowned, confused. The light turned green.
“Daddy?” Joey kept pointing. There was no time to wait for Joey to answer, with cars filling the lanes behind him, impatient shoppers off to the next store. Jake didn’t have any desire to stay out in this crazy traffic much longer, knew a hot lunch would be waiting for them at home, and his stomach grumbled at the thought. He accelerated ahead, figuring whatever Joey wanted could wait, his son not all that enthused about getting somewhere in particular. Just what was—
A loud crash startled Jake, caused him to shoot a look back at Joey, but all he could see was a flash of light, blinding, that made Jake not only whip his head back around but swing the wheel hard in Joey’s direction, to the right, to where his son’s finger still pointed, Joey holding it in the air like an exit sign, an escape from the cascade of crashes and loud explosions of noise that seemed to erupt all around him.
Jake’s vision cleared enough for him to see a curb, a sidewalk, and an opening alongside it where he could pull over, which he did, fitting his car into the space, the only one, on the right of the wide boulevard, then Jake realized he was still in the middle of the huge intersection, but off to the side, his tires edged up against the center divider, with lanes of vehicles on both sides of him, facing two directions, but no one moving. Jake’s head rang as he willed his hands to stop shaking, put the stick shift into Park, set the brake.
He swung his head back; Dinah’s mouth formed an O, no sound coming out, and Joey staring out the driver’s side window, staring at something, his expression unreadable but alarming.
Jake turned to see what snagged Joey’s attention. He rubbed his hand in circles on the fogged-up glass, then threw the door open, because he could not believe what he saw.
Like the aftermath of some explosion, cars and trucks askew, smashed into others, metal and glass strewn over the asphalt, one car upended and a wheel still spinning. Jake gripped his open door, his attention drawn to a loud cry, then to another truck—smashed head on against the brick wall running the length of the street, perpendicular to traffic. People staggered out of vehicles, stood dazed under the traffic lights that kept faithfully changing from green to yellow to red and back to green again with no one heeding.
The sounds that had been ringing muted in his ears suddenly burst into a loud cacophony, as time sped up and the reality faced him down, cars honking and people shouting, and Jake surveying and counting at least eight vehicles totaled, maybe more, and now the rain exploding in a downpour, and the wheel of that one car still spinning in a slow wobbly circle, round and round, in mesmerizing mindlessness.
Jake fell back into his seat, closed the door to keep out the rain, to smother the noise so he could think. He strained to remember his slow entrance into the intersection after the light had turned green, then Joey pointed and his turning, the flash of light, followed by a crash. He recalled suddenly in a spark of clarity a hefty truck plowing at top speed, saw it out of the corner of his eye, running the red light to his right, maybe sixty, seventy miles an hour. Jake guessed it was that truck—careening mindlessly like some video game monster truck into the jam-packed six-lane intersection—that had bowled down everything in its path and ended up smashed against the wall.
Then the thought slammed into his mind, just as forcefully as an out-of-control vehicle: If Jake hadn’t swung the wheel and turned when he had, their car would have been the first, dead-on, in that truck’s path. His small passenger car would have been ripped apart by that huge mass of metal, and he and his kids would have been killed instantly, there was no doubt about that, subjected to such force.
Jake hadn’t seen it coming, that vehicle materializing out of nowhere, without a second’s warning.
And Joey couldn’t have seen it either.
Sweat broke out on Jake’s forehead and he gripped the steering wheel to make his hands stop shaking so violently. He knew it wasn’t the brush with death that shook him. It was Joey’s finger, that finger that had pointed to the right, long before the light had turned green, before a truck could have been seen racing toward the intersection, and Joey’s eyes, not looking out his own window, spotting the truck, but just gazing straight ahead, and his small voice saying, “Daddy, turn right.”
“Daddy, turn right . . .” Joey’s words reverberated in his head, careened and crashing like another head-on collision—but this one a collision of incredulity and fact, of bewilderment and clarity. Jake had no doubt what Joey would say, should he ask him how he knew. Why he told his father to turn right, at that instant, for no good reason at all.
Jake closed his eyes, listened to the sirens gaining in volume, knowing at some point he would have to get out and give his report to the police, tell them what little he knew. What did he know? Really, only one thing.
That his son had saved their lives, not unlike the way Joey had saved his life last year, where he’d put his hand on Jake’s leg and miraculously stopped the bleeding. Jake hadn’t imagined that—and he hadn’t imagined this either. God, Joey called it, and maybe it was God—whatever that meant, not knowing if it meant what Rachel believed—that God as a person was looking out for him, for all of them, cared for them. That this God was speaking somehow through Joey for some inexplicable reason. Deep in his heart, Jake knew this to be true.
But he sure wasn’t going to put that in his statement to the police.
1987
Higher Love
Think about it, there must be higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is wasted time
Look inside your heart, I’ll look inside mine
Things look so bad everywhere
In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk blind and we try to see
Falling behind in what could be
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love, oh
Where’s that higher love, I keep thinking of?
Worlds are turning and we’re just hanging on
Facing our fear and standing out there alone
A yearning, and it’s real to me
There must be someone who’s feeling for me
I could light the night up with my soul on fire
I could make the sun shine from pure desire
Let me feel that love come over me
Let me feel how strong it could be
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love, oh
Bring me a higher love
Where’s that higher love, I keep thinking of?
—Steve Winwood
Dinah heard a knock on her bedroom door. She glanced at her clock; it was nearly eleven, but she wasn’t even sleepy yet. She loved snuggling up on a cold winter night under all her blankets and reading a great book. For Christmas, her mom had gotten her a large picture book on all the famous ballets, and she was just starting Giselle when she heard Simon whispering her name.
“Hey, you still up?”
“What do you want?” She pulled her bathrobe closed, retied the belt. Before she could get up and lock her door, he cracked it open, peeked his head in.
“I found something I thought you’d want to see.”
Dinah frowned. She never knew if Simon was playing a prank on her. Probably had a frog up his sleeve or, like last week, stuck a salamander in her glass of water. He knew how much she hated slimy reptiles, and he just liked to hear her scream. She was just about to tell Simon to get lost when Levi’s head stuck through the door alongside Simon’s.
“Come on, Di. You’ll want to see this.”
Dinah exhaled, got up and followed her brothers, teetering between curious and hesitant, now that she saw they were leading her into their parents’ bedroom. Simon made for the closet, and Dinah looked around, half expecting her parents to suddenly appear. Even though her parents never said anything about it, Dinah knew their bedroom was private, shouldn’t be violated, the way she felt about her room, her private space.
