by C. S. Lakin
When Mosey had told him how he’d found him, how the news had reported his disappearance, the way his brothers had lied to all the world regarding his demise, Joseph felt the heat’s flames. Mosey apologetically explained why he hadn’t taken Joseph to a hospital, saying the Holy Ghost had laid a charge on his heart to watch over him, Joseph realizing Mosey was the like the angel the Babylonian guards had seen in the furnace walking beside the three boys who came through the fiery test, singed but alive. A welcomed guardian angel.
Joe raised his chin, then his eyes. The face that stared back at him was a stranger’s—in more ways than one. The bruising and swelling gone, Joseph studied his new features all rearranged, saw Mosey had done a good job packing his nose and keeping it straight.
No one who knew him would ever recognize him, not now. He didn’t even know himself, not anymore.
Despair engulfed him, the fire of affliction, such inner pain Joseph had never known, not since that day he watched his mother die. Then, he had watched God betray him, refuse to hear him, but this feeling was even worse. He felt such agonizing separation, abandoned and forsaken, God throwing him away, tossing him into oblivion.
His family had turned on him. They hadn’t wanted to listen to his divinely given warnings and instead chose to kill him. Their evil hearts revealed in an astonishing act, unthinkable, heartless. Had his father been part of such a travesty? Joseph hated to believe it, yet . . . his father had refused to go to the police about Shane, threatened Joseph not to speak a word of it, his guilty conscience turning him fearful. And Dinah? She too had repeatedly told Joseph to forget what had happened, begged him to drop the subject, more concerned over protecting the family than desiring to please God—she, of all of them, more the hypocrite, having already given her life over to God, to do his will, yet choosing to side with evil. Hateful, all of them, except Ben, who knew nothing of their collusion.
He stared back at the stranger, this odd-looking person scrutinizing him with his own brown eyes. Fitting, having a different face. He didn’t know himself anymore, didn’t know his place in the world, had no place. He had died to his old life, all of it burned to ash in the fire. Maybe that was God’s intent, and the thought of it broke Joseph’s heart.
Hot tears streamed down the stranger’s face; Joseph watched impassively, tried to stir up feelings, but he was empty, unaffected, dulled in his senses. He thought how the Bible often likening the testing of faith to being purged with fire, God acting like a refiner to turn up the heat, make the dross rise to the surface—ugly, sinful attitudes and impurities—so that he could skim them off, turn an impure and tainted faith into a pure and holy one.
But these flames were too hot, too consuming. They had rendered his heart to ash, leaving nothing left, no feeling at all.
He turned at the sound of knocking.
“How ya doing in there, Joseph?”
Joseph opened the door, walked out of the bathroom, past Mosey, and sat down in the big overstuffed armchair. Mosey followed, sat across from him in one of the wood dining chairs.
Mosey leaned toward him, scrunched up his face in concern. “I did my best. I hope you’re not disappointed. I can tell from the pictures they showed of you on TV that you look a bit different.” He smiled and showed his bright teeth. “Still a plenty handsome young man, if you ask me.”
“I’m grateful to you, Mosey. You did a fine job.” Joseph tried to sound upbeat but his words came out flat.
Mosey frowned. “You sure you don’t want to call your father? Let him know you’re alive? He must be missing you something fierce.”
“I already told you—”
Mosey raised his hands. “I know, I know.” He blew out air through his nose. “Maybe in time. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like. I’m glad for the company.”
Joseph looked in his angel’s eyes. “I owe you my life; tell me how I can repay you. Maybe I can do something around here to help—”
“You owe me nothing. God’s the one saved your life. And as much as your strong young body is raring to move, your head is another story. You need to take it easy for a while. A hurt head needs time to heal. And a hurt heart.”
Joseph only nodded but didn’t say what he was thinking—that you couldn’t heal a heart like his. You could take all the time in the world, but it wouldn’t help, not when your heart was a pile of ash. Maybe God could make a phoenix rise from the ashes of despair, but why would he bring Joseph back from the dead? He was the one who put in there in the first place.
Maybe it was a good thing, he thought, to be dead. To be unable to feel. If you couldn’t feel, you couldn’t suffer. In time his family would forget him, and maybe he would forget them. The fires of affliction, in time, could render everything unrecognizable. Beginning with his face until they snuffed out his existence from the minds and hearts of all who had ever known him.
Too bad his concussion hadn’t left him with amnesia—then he would have blissfully forgotten his family’s terrible betrayal. Now, he would have to let time do the work. It might take a lifetime, but that was one thing Joseph had in his favor—his whole life ahead of him. His whole nothing of a life, which he planned to erase one day at a time.
Part Five: 1998–2001
Lamentations
Lamentation: the act of lamenting or expressing grief. To mourn aloud, wail; to express sorrow, mourning, or regret, often demonstratively
.
1998
Blessing in the Storm
When I cannot hear the sparrow sing
And I cannot feel the melody
There's a secret place that's full of grace
There's a blessing in the storm
Help me sing it
There's a blessing in the storm
When the sickness won't leave my body
And the pain just won't leave my soul
I get on my knees and say, “Jesus, please.”
There's a blessing in the storm
Help me sing it
There's a blessing in the storm
When I cannot seem to love again
And the raindrops won't ever end
If you just hold on
Those clouds will soon be gone
There's a blessing in the storm
Help me sing it
There's a blessing in the storm
—Kirk Franklin
Jake laid a tentative hand on the simple cherrywood coffin, caught a glimpse of his mother talking quietly to the minister by the back pews. Making sure everything was ready for the service, no doubt, in her efficient and calm manner. Isaac Abrams had lived a very long life, into his nineties, a much longer life, Jake mused bitterly, than either his own wife or his son, or their short years combined together. How fair was that?
Jake had arrived late yesterday afternoon, not intending to stay longer than was necessary, using Ben as an excuse, although Dinah was perfectly capable of caring for him while he was away. He and his mother had spent the terse evening catching up on the last twenty or so years, speaking in measured tones, Ethan not wanting to come around and Jake secretly relieved. They hadn’t parted under very pleasant circumstances, that last time Jake had seen him—when he and his sleazy girlfriend had dropped in on their family—but Jake was determined to be kind and gracious. He had no need to hold grudges, felt all his grudges melting away, standing here, his father now dead and no longer able to criticize him, unable to voice his disapproval one last time.
His childhood and all its angst seemed so long ago, Jake had trouble even recalling much of the unpleasantness. Maybe that was time’s mercy, the slow forgetfulness that took the bite out of the pain, although Jake doubted it would ever prove true regarding Joseph. Or Rachel. Maybe that was because the people you loved were never meant to die young. They were meant to go through your life with you, growing old alongside you, so that when you lost them, you’d have little life left yourself, little time to suffer before being put out of your misery. But Jake would not be
shown such mercy.
Jake rolled his shoulders and tried to adjust the poor-fitting suit, the same suit he wore only last month for the memorial service for Joseph. Jake had refused to be a part of such an occasion, but Dinah insisted, pressured them all into attending a service she’d organized through church, which basically implied they’d all given up hope, presumed Joseph dead and gone for good, although Jake still fought accepting that conclusion with every nerve in his body. Of course, there’d been no casket like today, here, his father’s body only inches from his hand, but lifeless and cold—cold as his father as always been toward him. Jake doubted he would know many people at today’s service; after all these years who knew how many of his neighbors still lived in Windsor, now a town spreading out in all directions, tracts of home where cornfields once stood, agribusiness gradually relinquishing to tech companies like Hewlett-Packard and Kodak?
Jake thought about Ben, his last link to Rachel. Would he be standing next to another coffin soon? Would Ben—now ten—even outlive Joseph’s sixteen short years? The thought made his heart ache yet again. In some ways Ben felt like his last link to this world, he didn’t know why other than Ben’s life gave meaning to Rachel’s death. As long as he lived, she hadn’t died for nothing. Surely that was why he’d been so obsessed over him lately; even Dinah had noticed, commented on his constant aura of worry, studying Ben each day for signs of improvement or worsening, reading up on kidney disease, on treatments and alternative medicines. The doctors still disagreed on prognosis—Ben might have to start on dialysis soon, or even need a transplant before he turned twenty—if he made it that far. But then he’d seem better and the doctors would act all hopeful, suggest Ben might stabilize for years yet.
Jake turned his attention to his father, thought what he would say to him had he the chance for one last conversation. Would he speak out, criticize him for the blatant favoritism he showed Ethan, for the verbal abuse he’d dumped on Jake all those years? Would it make a difference? He doubted it. Jake thought it a kind of irony that his father had lost his eyesight at the end of his life, that his moral and emotional blindness may have fostered his actual blindness, for Isaac Abrams never would truly open his eyes and see the damage he’d wrought, never would admit to the hurtful treatment of his son, see the wrongness of his ways.
From nowhere, Simon’s pained voice came to Jake’s mind, recriminations he’d never paid much attention to. “It’s favoritism, is what it is. Always has been. You’ve always loved Rachel’s kids more, never bothered to hide that. Don’t you have any idea how much it hurt to be treated like some second-class citizen in my own home?”
Jake startled, Simon’s words stinging him with truth. He smirked, felt once more the rush of self-reproach, as he realized he’d inherited his father’s blindness. Here he thought he’d been better than his father, treated all his children with love and equity, but that was a lie, he now saw—a lie he’d told himself at the cost of his family harmony. How had he been so foolish to believe his older children—Leah’s children—wouldn’t have picked up on the feelings he thought he’d buried deep inside, so deep no one would know they slumbered there? Somehow along the way he’d stopped paying attention, stopped listening, fallen into patterns he’d picked up instinctively from his parents. The moment Joseph had been born, Jake had loved him more than all his other children put together. He hadn’t meant to feel that way; perhaps every parent secretly had a favorite. But, so enamored with his perfect son, Jake knew that he had been careless from the outset, had broadcasted to the world how much he adored Joseph, and no matter what words of affection he spread around to the rest of his children, his actions belied his speech. He was no better than his father had been, and standing there next to his father’s silent body—silent but screaming these recriminations at him—made Jake feel aggrieved all over again. His sense of failure and unworthiness forced him to his knees and he wept, this time not for himself and his loss but for his children and what he’d deprived them of.
Jake felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up. His mother’s face bore no judgment, no pity either. She’d aged so much since he’d last seen her, almost didn’t recognize her. Her soft features had grown sharp and severe, the flaccid facial skin revealing angular protruding cheeks and chin. All that sharpness hidden for years under a veneer of softness. But aging seemed to remove such veneers, the way an old leaf might turn transparent, the veins now showing through a thin membrane that was once thick and opaque. He thought of the way old people shed their skins, exposed the musings of their hearts more readily. Maybe it was just the result of time wearing them down, to where keeping up appearances just took too much energy. He’d noticed it last night, as he and his mother spoke, as she stopped trying to lay heavy judgment and instruction on Jake, maybe had finally given up or realized that at fifty Jake was not all that inclined to be swayed by her persuasions any longer. Yet, with his own judgments weighing so heavy on his heart, he may not have noticed one more bundle added to his debilitating load. Not that he cared, not anymore.
“Jake, would you like to go get a cup of coffee—before everyone starts to arrive?” she asked.
He nodded, became suddenly the young boy who’d always run to his mother for protection and comfort. But one of the hard parts of growing up is realizing your parents cannot provide an adequate place of refuge, not really. Only a temporary shelter in the storm, then you see that they too are just as lost as you, trying to see through the driving rain and oppressive clouds of life, unable to make out much in the distance, only pretending they can, an attempt at keeping up morale in a hopeless situation.
Jake got to his feet and took his mother’s frail, cool hand. He walked alongside her, her stilted gait a match to his weak amble down the long aisle out to the street, the two of them entering the brisk fall day ablaze with color, the aspens shimmering and jingling in the breeze, sounding like coins, a sound Jake had always loved and missed throughout his California life, the way a whole grove of them could fill the mountains with music, like a thousand wind chimes.
The sight of such a glorious fall, the sublime beauty unmatched by anything in the world, at least to his mind, jarred him with its surge of peacefulness. As if everything and everyone around him lay at rest in perfect place—all but him, making him feel like an alien in a foreign land, longing for a place to settle but being forced to move on, to keep moving, put one foot in front of the other, never looking back because there was no turning back. Not ever.
Someone said you can never go home again. So much more true when home never conjured up a place of warmth and security, only unrest. Maybe that’s why so many people wanted to believe in a heavenly home, finding it unthinkable their spirit might never alight anywhere, not in this world or the next. Picturing a place where they can hang all their cares on a peg, dangle their legs over the edge of a silver-lined cloud, feel they belong. Jake couldn’t even begin to fathom such a feeling, barely even understood the word belong. Still, the idea filled him with an intractable longing.
When they got to his mother’s car, he turned to her, studied her face. The words he wanted to say seemed so huge, but as they left his mouth, they were only small offerings, weightless, insignificant.
“I’m sorry, Mom. Sorry for shutting you out all those years. I was so wrong—”
“Shh. It’s all water under the bridge. I pushed you too hard; it was my fault. I only meant to help.”
Jake felt his chest rise with a deep breath, wondered how his body kept on breathing, existing, without any effort on his part, without him willing it to. “I know you did. I should have let you. I needed help, but I was too proud to ask for it. I kept thinking all the problems would just sort themselves out over time, or just go away, if I stopped worrying so much about them.”
His mother gave a sad smile. “You did your best, Jake.”
“Did I?”
“Of course you did. You’re a good father. You just got in over your head.”
“I�
��m still in over my head, way over. I feel like I’m drowning and I’ll never come back up for air.”
His mother took his hands in her own, shook them gently. “You will, dear. The Abrams men are survivors.”
“I don’t want to just survive. I’ve been doing that for too long.”
“What do you want?” she asked, the question barely a breath of air.
Jake thought of all the years he longed for happiness, to be fulfilled, to get to that place, that illusive place where you finally arrived and said “I’m happy.” He thought he had it with Rachel for a time; surely he did. But happiness slipped through his fingers before he could catch it, those golden moments, Jake remembering back to the day in Rachel’s garden, where she sat in the chair nursing Joseph and the sun shone extra brightly and he wished he could capture that moment and preserve it forever.
Why was life that that—only fleeting moments of joy, like colored soap bubbles you reach for but pop at your touch? Life seemed so inherently pointless, comprising so few happy moments, the rest of your days a drudge of worry, misery, disappointment. He thought about his boss’s words, about how looking for meaning in life only made you miserable. Bill had told him the key to happiness was to stop thinking so much—just find ways to have fun and forget about all this deep stuff. Was he right? Was Jake only tormenting himself, year after year, wishing there were more to life than that? Thinking too hard, as Bill put it?
His mother’s question rang in his head: “What do you want?”
He knew the answer to that question, knew exactly what he wanted more than anything else in the entire world, but how could it help to voice it?
“I just want my son back, my Joseph . . .”
