by C. S. Lakin
Dinah turned and whispered something in Ben’s ear, gave him a little kiss on the cheek. Ben’s face brightened and he touched her cheek in return, a sweet simple gesture that told him volumes of the love they had between them. He was glad Dinah cared so much for Ben. She practically acted as his mother, and it seemed over this last odd year Dinah’s melancholy had lessened the more she tended to Ben.
Reuben noticed how much Ben resembled his mother. He had her blond hair and same nose, chin, round face. Joey’d had that light hair early on but now it was a shade of red, and Reuben saw more of their dad’s features in Joey’s face.
Lindsay took his arm. “They’re about to start. We should squeeze in.”
They eased in between his dad and Joey, listened to someone testing the mike. A row of teachers sat in chairs on the stage, and Reuben recognized a few of them from his classes.
“How’s work going, Rube? You still enjoying it?” his dad asked.
Reuben noticed his dad’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. When Rachel had died, his dad became so distraught, and that unhappiness still hung over him. It made him sad to think how miserable his dad was, working at that boring job year after year, nothing really to live for. Five years since Rachel’s death and his dad had yet to come out of his slump.
He answered, “Work’s good. And Lindsay and I are about to take a trip to Utah to do some climbing there.”
“That’s nice. I’m glad to see you so happy, Rube.”
“Thanks, Dad.” He glanced over at Lindsay and she nodded at him. “Dad, we’re thinking about getting married.”
His dad’s eyes widened. “Really? Well, that’s . . . great. Great news.” He smiled at Lindsay. “He sure found a great gal. I know you’ll be happy together.”
“We haven’t set a date or anything yet. Probably will wait at least a year. But I just wanted to let you know in advance. Give you time to get used to the news.”
His dad wrapped his arm around Reuben’s shoulder and squeezed. “I don’t need any time. You’re an adult; you’ve proved responsible and level-headed—just the way you’ve always been. I always knew you’d get through okay. I’m glad, really glad.” His dad exhaled and Reuben could tell he was truly happy for him. His dad added, shaking his head. “I don’t know how you grew up so fast. I remember you playing with your bucket and shovel on the beach, making sand castles, like it was yesterday.”
“Yeah,” Reuben answered, “it did go by fast.”
“I’m really proud of you, Son.” His dad’s voice cracked, emotion filling the crevices. “I wish I’d been a better father, spent more time with you—”
“Don’t sweat it, Dad. You did your best. You took care of us, all of us.” He felt uneasy, comforting his dad, seeing him like a small lost boy needing reassurance. Funny how the roles could switch like that. He suddenly felt sorry that his dad had been through so much, suffered so much loss. Maybe his marriage to Lindsay would bring a little happiness into his dad’s life. He hoped so.
Words blared through the mike. Reuben looked over to the stage and saw the high school principal gesturing to the crowd, welcoming everyone. He took Leslie’s hand, smiled back at her, feeling love swell again in his heart for this beautiful girl he loved so much. He would do all he could to make her happy, try to avoid the myriad mistakes his dad had made. He winced recalling the arguments his parents had had, his mom drinking booze and smoking cigarettes and leaving him in that sweltering car in the middle of the highway, while he watched her out the car window, his mom just walking away, leaving him behind. Maybe her crazy behavior had nothing to do with his dad’s failure. But then again, maybe it did. There was no way to know for sure.
He sat back and thought about his dreams, his expectant future, his escape from the madness of growing up as an Abrams. He hoped his dad was right—that he’d turned out okay, that he’d make it in life. He looked at his dad out of the corner of his eye, saw a deep sadness pooling there that resembled a whole lot like regret—something Reuben hoped he would never feel. He didn’t want to look back at the end of his life and feel he’d made the wrong choices, gave up his dreams. But he also knew that some things couldn’t be helped. Time and circumstance befall us all, the Bible says. Bad things happened; there was no avoiding them. Regardless, he was determined not to be dragged under by circumstance. He would rise above it, whatever came his way, climb so high nothing could touch him, Lindsay by his side, reaching for the highest heaven with her.
And then maybe he’d be able to put the troubled past behind him.
Joey listened as he lay on his bed. The house was quiet. Dad, Dinah, and Ben were off at the doctor’s office, getting more tests. He hated going with them, sitting in the waiting room, feeling so helpless, knowing the doctors couldn’t really do anything to make Ben better. He thought about riding over to the pool; the cool water would feel good on such a hot day, but something niggled at his mind. It had been so long since he’d heard the spirit speaking to him in that quiet voice, guiding him, warning him. Every day he longed for God to speak with him, but he’d given up that hopeful expectancy long ago. He finally came to believe that God still spoke to him, but in the way he did with all his faithful children—through his Word, through a sermon the pastor preached, or through a conviction of conscience. It was wrong for him to long to be special. Prideful. God had used him when he was young in a special way, and maybe he no longer needed him in that role. Maybe, he thought, he was only meant to have that gift for as long as his mom had been alive, that somehow his gift had been connected with her and when she died, his gift died as well.
It had taken him many years to come to this place, this acceptance. But he never stopped thirsting for God, waking each morning keenly aware of his need to commune with his creator, to search for him with all his heart, grope for a deeper, more profound understanding of his magnificence. There was no truly understanding the depths of God’s riches and wisdom! He didn’t understand why no one else in his family felt this drive, this urgency to feel God near. How could people walk through their lives, day after day, and not seek out the one who had made them?
Dinah still took him and Ben to church, and sometimes he’d talk with his sister about faith, although he sensed she doubted and didn’t want to surrender her life to God. Every time the pastor would call people to the altar, Joey hoped Dinah would get up and walk to the front, fall to her knees, dedicate her life to her heavenly father. He had done that at an early age—maybe when five or six—he couldn’t quite remember, for there had never been an exact moment, a particular day, that he could point to and say “this is when I first believed.” Or, “today I decide to give my heart to God.” His heart had always been God’s—ever since he could remember. His heart welled up with love and gratitude, and he closed his eyes and reveled in God’s presence, like sidling up to a warm fire on a cold night, or wrapping yourself in a warm blanket that made you feel safe, protected.
As he prayed about the things weighing on his heart, he felt a conviction growing. He’d felt it before, but he’d dismissed it. The memory of that week, when Dinah had been hurt and his brothers had murdered that guy, pushed its way unbidden into his thoughts. He felt a tremendous flood of guilt engulf him, like a huge tidal wave crashing over his head, submerging him, making him struggle for air. He knew his hands were clean; he hadn’t lied to anyone, hadn’t sinned. His dad had made him promise not to say a word—about that guy, Shane. About what Levi and Simon had done. Yet, the guilt consumed him as if he himself had beat Shane up.
No one had told him what happened that night, but Joey had dreamed it—more than once. In his dream he saw Simon and Levi standing over Shane, who was on the dirt, the sky dark but enough lingering light to be able to see Shane’s pleading expression and Levi’s rage. The first time he’d dreamed this dream, it shook Joey awake, for he had never seen Levi’s eyes like that, almost demon-possessed. In his dream both his brothers’ eyes glowed neon red, and they pounded their fists into Shane’s f
ace over and over and over . . .
Joey leapt from the bed, shaking. He grabbed his head, wanting to yank the images away, tear them into pieces. He panted, paced, until they finally faded and relief washed in. Why did they haunt him so—these visions of his brothers’ sin? It burdened him as if he himself had taken a rock and smashed it into Shane’s head.
He hesitated, then reached under his mattress and pulled out the dog-eared scrapbook, sat back down. Slowly, he turned the pages, almost mindlessly, looking at the clippings, reading the headlines, skimming the articles he had cut out of the paper and printed off his dad’s computer using AOL. There hadn’t been much at first, only a couple of short articles in the local paper when Shane’s family reported him missing. But then when the car had been found by some construction crew building a house on that parcel up on Mulholland, a bunch of stories appeared in the newspaper, identifying Shane, the reporters speculating about his death.
Simon had been mentioned in two of the articles, only as Shane’s roommate and the articles quoting him about how he had no idea where his roommate was, and when Shane’s body had been found, all chewed up and mostly just bones and hair, Simon had told reporters how shocked he was, adding how Shane had probably driven down to that bluff in the dark, maybe didn’t see the edge.
Joey turned to the next page, an article with an interview with Shane’s mother and her stating how she just couldn’t see how her son could have driven off the cliff, even if he had been high or drunk. Asking people to come forward if they knew anything, had seen anything.
Bring into the light the things in the darkness.
Joey froze. Was God speaking to him, or was it just his own thoughts? He picked up his Bible off the nightstand and turned to the last lines of Ecclesiastes. He’d read this so many times the pages were sticky, but they called to him, the way certain verses always did, as if they were written in bold blinking letters, making him pay attention.
“For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.”
He sat there, his Bible in his lap, his mind numbing. His family was sitting on this horrible secret, trying to keep it in a box about to burst, and the secrecy was eating away at all of them, keeping God far away from their lack of confession and repentance. Joey felt it like a sickening disease, infecting him, contaminating him. He suddenly thought of Eli, the priest who lived during the time of the prophet Samuel. How Eli well knew the evil things his sons Hophni and Phinehas were doing in the temple as they performed their priestly duties—greedy, selfish acts God condemned. God had warned Eli to discipline his sons, make them stop their evil behavior and repent, but Eli, afraid, kept silent.
God had punished him for that silence, for standing by and not saying anything, not doing anything. Because of Eli’s unfaithfulness, God not only struck down the headstrong sons, but the news of their deaths caused Eli to fall backward and break his neck—nothing less than a severe judgment from God.
Joey gasped.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Joey swung his head toward his open bedroom door. Simon and Levi were coming toward him. He hadn’t heard them come into the house—he had been so deep in his thoughts.
Before he could open his mouth, Simon grabbed the scrapbook from the bed. His brother’s eyes widened in alarm.
Simon swore and shook his head. “Look at this,” he told Levi, standing next to the bed, flipping the pages. “The little rat has been documenting all this, can you believe it . . .”
Levi shot Joey a vicious look. “What are you up to? Don’t you know someone might find this? What would they think?”
“Give it back!” Joey said, jumping off the bed.
Simon held the book high in the air. “I could kill you . . .”
“Like you killed Shane?” Joey blurted. His body trembled, not from fear but righteous anger. “You’re a murderer—both of you are. And if you don’t confess and repent, you’ll burn in hell!”
Simon shook his head, gritted his teeth. “He’s going to tell, I just know it.” He stuck his face right up to Joey’s, his hot breath heating the sweltering room even more. “If you ever, ever, think about breathing a word of . . . what happened to anyone . . . I will kill you.”
“Me too,” Levi added, daggers in his eyes. “Be sure of it, dreamer.”
Simon stormed out the bedroom with Levi hurrying behind him. By the time Joey got his legs to move and ran after them out the back door into the yard, Simon already had his lighter out and was igniting the book. Joey stood there, silent, and watched the pages curl, his brothers scowl as they stood in vigil, the scene winging Joey’s brain back to the temple, with Hophni and Phinehas burning sacrificial offerings to God on the altar, contaminated sacrifices that did not please God, only infuriated him, the smoke a sickening stench that roused God’s wrath.
Surely God was watching and feeling much the same way this very moment. And here he was, himself, standing there like Eli, not saying a word, not able to turn the two sinners from their evil ways or make them repent.
He sensed a horrible judgment about to descend. Maybe not now, or tomorrow, or even next year. But he knew it was coming; he could hear it in the distance like roaring thunder, heading his way.
It was only a matter of time.
1994
Return to Innocence
That’s not the beginning of the end
That’s the return to yourself
The return to innocence
Don’t be afraid to be weak
Don’t be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence
If you want, then start to laugh
If you must, then start to cry
Be yourself don’t hide
Just believe in destiny
Don’t care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don’t give up and use the chance
To return to innocence
—Enigma
In all these many years, Jake had never taken his youngest children to the beach. The realization hit him now, as he stood at the shoreline, Dinah playing with Joey and Ben in the sand, the two older ones helping Ben make a huge drip castle.
He knew why he’d avoided coming, recognizing the ghosts washing up the sand, encircling his ankles, whispering unpleasant things he did not want to hear. He turned and looked down the nearly empty beach—a few joggers and a spattering of children running on this dreary March day. And other ghosts took familiar form—his daughter not that much younger than Leah had been when he’d met her, when they’d walk endless hours on this very same section of coastline, north of the pier. As she bent over, brushed hair out of Ben’s eyes, he saw Leah, thrown back in time, to a time of innocence, perhaps. And Joey, nearly a teenager, smiled with Rachel’s smile, digging in the sand with a plastic shovel just the way Rachel had dug dirt in her garden. These layers of memories lying one over the other, fusing together, hard to peel apart.
The ocean stretching out endlessly before him mimicked the despair facing him on this quest, this seemingly futile quest, to help Ben get well. He had taken Joey out of school, driven the kids to the specialist in Santa Monica, thinking maybe today would be the day that they’d get good news about Ben’s prognosis, and they could celebrate by eating lunch on the Promenade, have some quality family time together.
Jake wanted to process the doctor’s words into something tangible, something he could physically grasp in both hands and hang on to, a life ring of hope that would buoy him above the waves of fear. For he feared if he lost Ben, after having lost Rachel, he would sink and sink fast, as if his feet were encased in leaden shoes and all the struggling in the world could not prevent his end. But the things the doctor had told him were nothing less than gibberish—terms and names of diseases and invasive procedures and painful treatments and nothing hopeful or promising out
of his mouth.
The tests were nearly conclusive. Ben showing all the signs of juvenile nephronophthisis or NPH. His kidneys were not concentrating the urine enough, which led to excessive urine production and sodium loss, which led to scarring of the kidneys and formation of fluid-filled cavities which would eventually lead to debilitation and the need for dialysis, followed by kidney failure and death. There was no treatment for HPH, only ways to control the symptoms and slow the progress of the disease. The only shard of hope the doctor offered was that eventually, if Ben’s symptoms did lead to full-blown NPH, he might survive with a kidney transplant, when he was a bit older, if a proper match could be found. For now, the doctor’s only recourse was to put Ben on salt supplements and hand Jake a list of all the foods Ben needed to avoid, foods containing large amounts of phosphorus and potassium, and encourage Ben to drink plenty of water.
He could drink this entire ocean of saltwater surging before him and not get any better.
Why, God? Why are you picking on me—singling me out? Haven’t I suffered enough?
Ben had cried when the nurse pricked his finger and squeezed blood out, filling the pipette and transferring it onto glass slides. It hurt him to hear Ben cry, this little pain he had to endure for the twentieth or maybe thirtieth time in the last two years. And no doubt there would be more pain, worse discomfort. And Jake would have to stand there and watch his son suffer without being able to do a thing about it. Was there any worse torment for a parent? He doubted it.
As he looked out at the horizon, miles from shore, he felt ill-prepared to carry this burden. He was grateful for Dinah’s dedication, her remaining home after graduating, taking night classes to get her nursing degree, wholly committed to helping Ben. Jake would never be able to manage without her. She tried hard to cheer Ben up, cheer them all up. After the incident two years ago, the unspeakable event they never spoke about but always followed them around like a hungry mongrel snapping at their heels everywhere they went, Dinah had withdrawn back into her dark depression, rarely speaking, eating, hiding in her room. But seeing Ben grow sicker with each passing day snapped her out of her misery, his pain tugging at her, pulling her out of the hole and onto the solid ground of life once more. Unlike Joey, whose need to go into medicine was spurred by his guilt and frustration and grief, Dinah’s decision to be a nurse was prompted by compassion and an ache to feel useful. She took to her studies with the same dedication and passion she had displayed with her ballet dancing, this too like a dance but with death on her stage, and Dinah drawing power from her limbs to leap and kick and spin to thwart the enemy from snatching his target.